Whitewater
by GuardianSaiyoko
Summary: A collection of short stories about the Teen Titans, mainly exploring implied scenes in the series.
1. Refuge

**Disclaimer:** I don't own them. I have a slightly more realistic idea of what happens when five teenagers move in together than that. And no, I should not be allowed anywhere near children's shows, really.

This is set directly after the episode_ Go! _ I'm aware it's unlikely, but it was fun to write.

**Whitewater**

_Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or we grow weak, and at last some crisis shows us what we have become.  
-Brooke Foss Westcott _**  
**

**001. Refuge**

She didn't think she'd ever know why she did it.

But, well, she knew Starfire had no place to stay. She also knew the alien was likely following Robin already. Cyborg could take care of himself, obviously. It was clear the little shapeshifter hadn't wanted Cyborg to leave. She didn't know how, but she had ended up going out for pizza with Cyborg and Beast Boy after Robin and Starfire had left. She had split the cost with Cyborg, and if anyone asked, she was merely concerned that Beast Boy was in Jump City with no money. That was all it was.

No money, and no place to stay, she realized as she followed him to the park. He waited until no one was looking, then jumped into a tree and transformed into a squirrel mid-jump and darted into a hole in the trunk. She could see a green bushy tail flick out.

Sighing, she settled at the foot of the trunk and began meditating. When it began to rain, she flicked up a shield of dark energy and continued. She meditated well into the evening and by the time she came out of her trance the park was empty. Well, almost empty.

"Beast Boy," she said quietly, not moving from her lotus position, "shouldn't you have gone home by now?"

He scurried down beside her and resolved into human form, settling back on his haunches and looking at her. "I could ask you the same question. Although, I wouldn't be surprised if you lived out here in the dark with the bats." His voice strained slightly. She opened one eye and looked at him.

"I live nearby," she said calmly. "Your turn."

"Ah…." He rubbed the back of his head nervously. "I kinda….came here with no money….so, yeah. No one objects to another coupla animals in the park, yeah? Even if they are green." He laughed weakly. Raven dropped all pretense of not paying attention and turned to fully face him.

"How long have you been living in the park?" she asked him sternly.

He dropped his gaze and wouldn't look at her, drawing his arms around his knees and rubbing the fabric slightly. He mumbled something she couldn't make out. She stared at him and he winced before repeating, louder, "..A few…m-months…"

Raven did not reply this time. After several minutes of awkward silence, she stood and began walking away. Beast Boy felt his heart sink and curled in on himself a little more.

He heard Raven stop, a few feet away, and turn back towards him.

"Are you coming?"

He scrambled to his feet and followed her.

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Raven unlocked the door to her apartment and wasted several minutes waiting for the shapeshifter to enter first. When she glanced back at him, annoyed, she realized he was busy waiting for her. Sighing, she stepped in and he followed slowly. She locked the door with a tiny flare of her aura before looking at him again. He was staring around the room, expression caught somewhere between surprise and fear.

"You look like you've never been indoors before."

The dry comment snapped him out of it. He swallowed once and smiled, but it was the smile he'd had when he was trying to talk Cyborg into hanging out with him before the aliens attacked- weak, trying, not quite a true smile. "It's been a while."

Raven studied him as he edged further into the room. He was drenched and shivering, eyes wide and ears back, and she felt a sharp stab of pity as his gaze darted around the room. As near as she could tell, he was marking any possible exits, which was exactly what she would have done in his place.

_Not that I'd ever be in his place._ Raven had the sense to arrive in Jump with enough money to hold her until she could find a job. She hadn't found one yet, but neither was she anywhere near running out of money.

"That," she said, pointing to a doorway across from where they stood, "is my room. You don't go in there, ever, period. Over there," she pointed again, "kitchen. If you can clean it you can use it, if you can cook it you can eat it, it wouldn't be a good idea to rely on me for food."

He didn't reply and she moved further into the apartment, opening the closet and tossing him a towel. "Bathroom's through there, go shower and I'll find some sheets or blankets."

By the time she turned back, he was gone and she could hear the shower starting. If he'd really been living in the park for the past few months he probably was pretty eager to have a shower.

…She hoped.

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When Beast Boy got out of the shower- quite some time later, since he'd been reveling in the feeling of hot water- Raven was nowhere to be seen. There was, however, a deep violet blanket folded neatly on the couch with a matching pillow stacked on top of it. He'd shrugged back into his Doom Patrol uniform since he had nothing else to wear. It was dirty, but he'd usually shifted into an animal form in the park, so it wasn't too bad. At least it had mostly dried off now. He tugged the blanket over the couch and curled up under it, sighing in bliss- warm and dry and comfortable, with something soft to sleep on.

Raven stayed up later than usual, uneasy about having someone else in her living space. To say she was territorial would have been an understatement- her space was _her_ space, end of conversation.

It was just for the night, she assured herself, going into the kitchen for a cup of tea. She glanced at her couch as she passed it. The changeling was curled up beneath the blanket with his arms wrapped around the pillow, only his head visible. He was still very deeply asleep. She guessed sleeping in the park hadn't been terribly restful, especially if he'd usually shifted into something like a squirrel that had natural predators to watch out for.

Thunder burst outside and Raven instinctively glanced at the window. Beast Boy ducked the rest of the way under the blanket without waking up.

_He's just here to wait out the storm,_ she told herself. _In the morning he'll find somewhere else to stay._

_------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _

He was sick, as it turned out. He woke up at midday with a coughing fit that caused him to fall off the couch. Staying through the storm became staying until he was better, and one night became three days. Three days became a week. A week became two weeks. He'd long since recovered by then, but she never quite seemed to get around to kicking him out. She went out one day and came back with a set of clothes in his size, handing them to him without saying anything. They fought with the thermostat constantly- she liked the cold, he liked heat. They fought over meals, though not as much, since she ate whatever was easy to make and drank a lot of herbal tea and he ate all her fruits and vegetables. Their sleeping patterns clashed. He was semi-nocturnal and not very good at staying quiet, and the noise from the old half-broken television she kept and he insisted on trying to use kept her up at night. They fought over everything, really.

But he continued to sleep on her couch, and she could feel the nervous hesitation in him each argument. This had become his sanctuary and he really didn't want to give it up, but it was her home and she was well within her rights to kick him out. She held back in each argument to keep her powers in check. Occasionally they would get a call on their communicators from Robin, asking for their help in a bank robbery or a bomb threat or in catching a villain.

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Beast Boy's 'one night' was approaching a month when they got the call. Between the two of them, Robin and Cyborg had somehow gotten permission to build on the island, using the fallen spaceship as their framework. The two of them and Starfire would be moving in as soon as possible, and would they like to come too?

The calls were separate, the others never having realized Beast Boy was staying with Raven, and the answers were separate but they were the same.

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Raven asked Cyborg to see the blueprints early on. She changed them so that her room was next to Beast Boy's. If he noticed, he didn't comment.

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She would never admit it, but it had become easier to sleep when she could hear him in the next room.

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**GuardianSaiyoko:** _Whitewater_ is a collection of short stories written whenever I've hit a difficult spot in _One Which Makes the Heart Run Over_. The name is because I've been whitewater rafting twice in my life. The first time was a awesome experience, the second time...when the guide says "wanna swim in the rapids?", "I'm all for it" is _not_ the appropriate answer. I may have had a slight near-death experience that time, but it was still incredibly fun.

Review, please!


	2. Snapshots

**Disclaimer:** If I owned them, I'd have money for some decent food.**  
**

**Whitewater**

**Snapshots**

* * *

**002. Family Ties**

_Continuity: Anytime_**  
**

Beast Boy didn't look up as a light thump sounded beside him on the branch. He stayed crouched, shifting his weight slightly to keep his perch, and continued to watch the families playing in the park.

"Beast Boy?"

He turned his head, just slightly, and met Robin's worried gaze. He didn't answer, just turned back and watched a mother and father setting out a picnic lunch. Their young son, probably only three or four years old, played nearby. He felt Robin settle next to him and join him watching.

"Makes you jealous, doesn't it," Robin said quietly some time later. The young mother had picked up her son and was swinging him around her, laughing.

"Yeah." Beast Boy sighed. "It's selfish, though. Cy and the girls have had less. Mento and Elastigirl adopted me- so I _have_ parents, really."

Robin smiled sadly. "I know what you mean. Besides training me, Batman adopted me. He is my father, now, but…" He looked back at the family in the park. "But it's never quite the same, is it."

"No," Beast Boy breathed quietly, his gaze almost hungry. "It's not."

Robin stood and extended his hand, pulling Beast Boy to his feet and looking towards Titan's Tower. "C'mon. Let's go home. The rest of our little family is worried about you."

* * *

**003. Learn to Fly**

_Continuity: Anytime_**  
**

For Cyborg, the Tower and the Titans was a chance to find somewhere he belonged. For Starfire, it was a sanctuary, the safest she had ever felt. For Raven and Beast Boy, it was a home and a family.

For Robin, it was proving himself. It was growing up.

It felt like learning to fly.

* * *

**004. Insomniacs **

_Continuity: Any Valentine's Day_

Robin had been awake for a very long time. The next day was Valentine's Day and he wanted to do something nice for Starfire. This was one Earth holiday she had never quite grasped, so he felt safe in giving her a valentine. There was just one problem.

He kept getting interrupted.

First it was Raven, peering over his shoulder and nearly giving him a heart attack. "You spelled Koriand'r wrong," her monotone commented, making him jump and drop the half-completed valentine. "There's an apostrophe at the end." Raven fetched her herbal tea and swept back out of the room.

Then Starfire herself wandered in, looking for food for Silkie as Robin desperately tried to hide. He was lucky; the alien girl was half-asleep and didn't see him.

After that he was left alone for a while. Robin sighed, thinking he was in the clear, until a flash of lightning sent a green cat scrambling out from beneath the couch and hiding beneath the coffee table. Robin ended up carrying a quivering, half-awake cat into Beast Boy's room as fast as possible and dropping him on the bed. When he returned to the common room, Cyborg was leaning over the coffee table and looking over the valentine. "If you wanted privacy," the older teen commented, "you should have tried doing this in your room."

Robin's frustrated cry could be heard on the mainland.

"Does no one in this Tower _sleep!_"

* * *

**005. Warmer**

_Continuity: During _Snowblind

Raven huddled a little bit closer to the wall of the igloo. She was sharing the wall formed by the T-ship with Robin and Beast Boy, the smaller green boy crouched low between them and shivering like mad. Across from them, Cyborg had long since shut down for the night, and Robin was extremely busy attempting to stare a hole through the wall. Neither of them noticed when Beast Boy gave up getting warm on his own and ducked under Raven's cape. He moved quickly, as if maybe if he did it fast enough she wouldn't notice.

No such luck. Raven glared down at the green fuzz poking out of her cape. "What do you think you're doing?"

Beast Boy looked up at her and smiled sheepishly. "St-staying w-warm?"

"And _why_ does that involve my cloak, exactly? Change into a polar bear, or a wolf."

He drew himself up slightly and glared back. The effect was rather ruined by his wildly chattering teeth. "H-how d'you 'spect me to k-keep a form when I'm fr-freezin' and asleep? I'd l-lose it soon as I wasn' awake 'nymore."

Raven continued to glare at him. He continued to glare back. Robin continued to glare at the wall, oblivious to his companions.

Beast Boy smirked. Raven was shivering.

Finally, sighing, Raven relented. Beast Boy huddled inside her cloak and laid his head against her shoulder, asleep almost instantly.

And Raven had to admit, she was _much_ warmer.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Some cute short ones, this time. And look, Robin and Starfire even got some attention. 


	3. Tag

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I own a cat, but that's a debatable ownership. She is a cat, after all.

* * *

**Whitewater**

**006. Tag**

_Continuity: ...In all honesty, I don't think this timeframe even exists._

Birthdays were interesting at Titan's Tower.

After Raven's disastrous first party, her celebrations were kept short and simple, although the 'Beast Boy pinata game' became something of a ritual. Unfortunately for Beast Boy, it took Starfire a while to understand she was supposed to hit the _pinata_, not her teammate. Cyborg's birthday consisted of a traditional race- Cyborg in the T-car, Robin on the R-cycle, and Beast Boy and the girls in the air. Only Robin and Cyborg really enjoyed this; Beast Boy, Starfire, and Raven had their own secret tradition of landing at the halfway mark and circling back to a small café where the three of them would eat lunch and rest before Raven teleported them to the finish line, always just after the winner had crossed it. Both Cyborg and Robin seemed to have difficulty with the concept that flying required energy. Raven had found she quite enjoyed the time she spent at the café. The three of them didn't spend much time together without the others there, and she could usually just sit back and sip her tea while Beast Boy and Starfire fired off jokes at each other. Each of them probably only understood about half of what the other said, but they laughed all the same.

Starfire's birthday was some strange Tamaranean festival and Robin's, at her insistence, was also a Tamaranean celebration. His birthday had been even harder to figure out than Raven's, and the others had only half-heartedly protested Star's idea. It was amusing. Beast Boy was the only one to actually tell Robin just_ how_ amusing it was and consequently was the only one running laps around Titan's Tower the next morning.

But Beast Boy's birthday….Beast Boy's birthday was by far the most fun. For his birthday, they played laser tag.

When he had first chosen that, they'd all been surprised. Didn't they spend enough time fighting? In the end, though, Robin got them a laser tag game for the entire day. The rules for the Titans were slightly different from anyone else's.

Basically? Don't destroy the course, or at least rebuild it if you do. Powers? Allowed. Completely allowed. And most interesting, no one was quite sure how, but many other Titans had found out about the traditional game and now joined in each year. Kid Flash and Jinx had joined first, then the Titans East, then Hotspot and Wildebeest, then others. It became a yearly free-for-all, though alliances tended to hold during the games. The original Titans tended to team up and the Titans East tended to do the same, with one noticeable exception for each; on this day each year, Robin and Bumblebee were fair game for everyone.

So right now, Raven was absently considering whether or not her leader knew that Beast Boy had been stalking him as a bat for the better part of the past ten minutes and shooting at the back of his laser-responsive backpack every chance he got. She decided against it; he'd find out when they received scorecards at the end. Each year's scorecards were posted on a bulletin board back at the Tower in the hallway by Beast Boy's room. Robin had the highest score, despite having everyone but Bee against him. Much to everyone else's disgust Robin _always _had the highest score. Last year they'd even faced off in an everyone-together-versus-Robin round, with even Bumblebee going after him- and _he still won_. Twenty to one, and he still won!

So this year, they had a plan. They had five two-men stealth teams and five two-men diversion teams, all designed to take out Robin. Beast Boy and Raven were the Night stealth team, Starfire and Cyborg were the Day diversion team. Each diversion team was paired with a stealth team this way- Good Luck and Bad Luck, Fight and Flight, Fire and Water, and Stars and Sky were the others. This attack had been planned ever since _last _year, and this time Robin wasn't going to win.

They hoped.

Raven's communicator blinked silently. For today only, Robin's was on a different frequency, and it was Bad Luck's job- Kid Flash and Jinx- to make sure it _stayed _on that frequency. She clicked the answer button, raising her left arm in the signal for Beast Boy to land. He hit her padded arm as a hawk and peered at the communicator with her. The two of them had been teamed together the year before as well, and after the lacerations on her arm from _that_ time, she'd made sure she had a gauntlet _this _time.

Cyborg's face looked back at them, his voice pitched low so it wouldn't carry- Robin had been known to track them by sound before. "Day Diversion is in five minutes at the Crimson Rock. Night, get into position. Stars and Sky, be ready to run backup. Titans, go!" The communicator blinked out. Raven tossed Beast Boy into the air where he became a bat again, wincing as his claws even scored through the leather and darkly promising herself revenge on whoever kept pairing them together. She suspected Cyborg, but she couldn't prove anything.

She sank into the ground and reappeared at Crimson Rock. The arena was split into four color coded sections; green, red, yellow, and blue. Crimson Rock was Robin's favorite place to make a stand, and a good place for it. The massive rock had a cleft at its base just large enough for one person to squeeze into and Robin liked to back into the crevice and then hold it against all comers; the tactic had a good success rate.

_Not this time_, Raven thought, smirking, as she edged into attack position. Beast Boy flew down and crouched on her shoulder as a raven. It had been Bee's decision that they should all take their codenames seriously, so the two of them were expected to come from the dark itself when they did strike. "Night is about to fall," Raven murmured into her cloak clasp.

"Day is ready to break," came the fizzy response. Raven waited for the signal.

It never came.

Instead of the blue wash of Cyborg's sonic cannon., white light suddenly drenched the arena. Beast Boy pressed close to her shoulder with a harsh _caw_ as she threw up her free arm defensively. When she lowered it, blinking, she had to refrain a curse. One of the red rocks nearby cracked with dark energy.

The Batsignal was stretched across the ceiling, washing away all the darkness of the laser tag course. Night no longer had a place in this fight.

Robin stood atop Crimson Rock, smirking, one hand cocked in the "Bring it!" gesture. Raven could see the Day team hidden across from herself and Beast Boy, Starfire hovering with an expression of disbelief and Cyborg gritting his teeth. Raven's eyes panned across the area, seeing the Stars team made up of Speedy and Argent still in their back-up position. Sky…Raven's eyes narrowed. She could see Aqualad, looking frantic, but Bumblebee was nowhere in sight.

That mystery was resolved a moment later, when a grinning Bumblebee resumed her full size beside Robin. "Y'all should know better than to mess with your leaders," she smirked, before launching straight at Cyborg and Starfire with a loud "Hyaaah!"

Raven growled, low in her throat, and gave her own orders as Cyborg and Speedy did the same.

"Night, fall!"

"Day, break!"

"Stars, shoot!"

Robin somersaulted from the rock and landed by planting his feet on Aqualad's chest, knocking him backwards into Argent, then drew his laser gun and fired off several shots in quick succession. Aqualad, Argent and Speedy were down. Bumblebee took out Starfire and Cyborg with the same speed, flashing rapidly from large to small and firing her laser at the response units on Cyborg's arm and strapped across Starfire's chest.

Fight and Flight skidded into the arena, consisting of Mas and Menos of Flight and Hotspot and Wildebeest for Fight. "Bee snuck off and took out the others before coming here," Hotspot called to Raven, before dodging out of the path of a birdarang. Raven's eyes narrowed and she hovered into the air, throwing up a shield as Beast Boy shifted into an osprey and walked cautiously down her gauntleted arm. He spread one wing in front of the cloak clasp where her laser response was located and ducked his head to block the necklace he wore that held _his _laser response. Raven drew her laser gun carefully from beneath her cloak, where it was holstered along with Beast Boy's, took aim, and fired. Bee was down.

Unfortunately, she'd managed to take out the twins first. Robin came straight for them, now, and Beast Boy launched himself into the air with a screech and went into a speed-dive, herding the Boy Wonder towards Raven and Hotspot. Beast Boy's animal forms gave him an advantage, making him nearly impossible to hit, but at the same time they also meant he had to rely on his partner to cause any damage.

Robin allowed himself to be led towards them, but back flipped out of the way at the last moment, allowing the fired lasers to hit Hotspot and Wildebeest. Raven shielded just in time, before telekinetically throwing a rock at the back of Robin's head. As she'd expected, he wasn't prepared for it. He fell to his knees with a low curse as Beast Boy winged back to her and settled on the gauntlet as an eagle, screaming harshly and mantling his wings. She could feel the enjoyment coming off him in waves. She drank it in and let it go in a wash of black energy, throwing Robin across the area and knocking him against Crimson Rock. He slumped to the ground, shaking his head dizzily.

Raven swept towards him, swinging her laser into position. Beast Boy clung tightly to her arm. She aimed, took her shot…and Robin lurched out of the way, bringing up his laser and blasting both her and Beast Boy in quick succession. The Boy Wonder grinned as the Batsignal clicked off and the buzzer signaling a winner sounded. Beast Boy returned to human with a groan, annoying Raven, as he was still on her arm and brought her to the ground with the sudden shift in weight.

Robin had won _again._

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** Anyone who thinks Robin cannot win against twenty-to-one odds, firstly, I invite you to watch part I of Apprentice. Secondly, I invite you to meet my friend Lev, who wins _every bloody time_.

And yes, they are playing a one-hit-kill game. Can you imagine how long it would take this lot to finish otherwise?


	4. Photographs

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the Titans or R.E.M.'s _It's the End of the World as We Know It_.**  
**

**Whitewater**

**Snapshots II**

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**007. Different**

_ After Season Four_

It had started off as a game of truth-or-dare. There had been a late night battle with Dr. Light, leaving everyone too energized to sleep. Dr. Light had, unfortunately, taken out several power grids before the Titans had taken him down, so the city was on emergency power for the next few days. For Titan's Tower, this meant security systems only. All the power was diverted to keeping the security running and to Cyborg's recharge unit.

They didn't even have _light_.

So they were sitting around the table in the common room, lit only in the blue wash from Cyborg's shoulder light. They had yet to make it past the first dare. Raven had half-expected it to be someone daring Robin to take off his mask, but no one was quite willing to cross that line. Instead, the first dare had been for Beast Boy to take of his gloves.

Now they'd all been sitting in a silent circle for ten minutes staring at their hands on the table. Beast Boy had been edgy enough about the dare that Robin had taken off his gloves first, revealing hands that were scarred but very much human. Starfire had placed her hand palm down on the table beside his, orange flesh already clearly visible. Cyborg had then flattened his huge palm against the table and glanced at Raven. She had sighed, but set her hand in the middle of the table as well.

Beast Boy's green hand had joined them. His fingers had no nails, but when he pressed down slightly on the table, claws flexed from their tips. He had winced slightly at everyone's gaze on him. After that, everyone had been staring silently at their hands set next to each other- gray, green, orange, metal, human.

Not surprisingly, it was Starfire who broke the silence. She reached across the table and grasped Beast Boy's hand in her own, turning it so that their palms met, and then looked him in the eyes. "See? We are not so different after all."

Robin smiled and his hand joined theirs, wrapping around Starfire's. Raven reached out to grasp Beast Boy's hand as well. Cyborg's metal hand engulfed them all. An understanding passed between them; they might be different, but here, they were home.

Beast Boy looked at Raven. It was her turn, she realized.

"Truth," Raven breathed.

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**008. Girl Talk**

_ Between _Titan Rising _and _Betrayal

Raven stared at Terra.

Terra stared at Starfire.

Starfire stared at Raven.

Raven broke the silence. "Does anyone here actually have any idea what girls normally sit around and talk about?"

Starfire shrugged. "On Tamaran, I did not have many female friends."

Terra shrugged, too, looking just as lost. "I've been living in caves."

Raven sighed, tossed aside her pillow, and stood up to leave Starfire's room. "And I'm from another dimension. Guess your 'girl talk' isn't going to work out, Starfire."

Hiding in the hallway, all three boys cursed.

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**009. Midwinter**

_ Anytime_

Cyborg walked out of Beast Boy's room, looked at Robin, and shook his head. "I swear to you, man, I don't know how he's doin' it, but he's hibernating. He must've picked it up from his animal forms."

Robin groaned and dropped his head into his hands. A freak storm had left them snowed in for the past week, and by all weather reports, for the next week as well. While he accepted that they were stuck in the Tower for a while yet, and all villains were effectively trapped inside as well, he still would have preferred to have the team at full power. He looked up again. "Where's Starfire?"

Raven materialized in the hallway behind him and spoke, making him jump. "She's in her room. She said she 'wished to try the hibernating that Beast Boy seems so intent upon.'"

Robin looked ready to tear out his hair.

Three hours later, he sat at the kitchen table with Raven and Cyborg, morosely moving a game piece around a battered board.

"Man, since when do we even _have_ board games?" Cyborg wondered out loud as he held out his hand for Robin to fork over the play money. Robin did so, grumbling, wondering exactly when Cyborg had gotten Boardwalk. Raven's powers flicked out and knocked the dice into the air, then nudged her piece across the board into the jail when they landed on doubles for the third time in a row.

"Starfire bought them a few months ago," Raven replied without looking up from her book. Both boys felt it was deeply unfair that despite the fact Raven had been reading the entire time and had spent probably half the game in jail, she was still winning. Sighing, Raven set down the book and stood up, shaking her cloak into place. "I'm going to bed."

In the morning, Robin made some interesting discoveries. One: Demons can hibernate and Two: Cyborg had an extended 'sleep' mode.

Robin was going to be very bored for the next week or so.

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**010. Stormsong**

_ After Season Five_

Thunder boomed so nearby it sounded as though it came from within the Tower. Starfire squeaked and dove behind the couch, Beast Boy jumped and became a turtle in midair. Even Cyborg flinched.

Robin stood up and glanced at the window- the window that made up the _wall_, and it occured to him that maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Lightning can strike through glass.

Thunder sounded again, lightning flashed and lit the common room as bright as day. Turtle Beast Boy was now hiding beneath the hem of Raven's cloak and Starfire appeared to be burrowing into the couch along with Silkie. Robin sighed.

"Everyone, into the basement, come on." Cyborg had to pick up Starfire and Silkie, and Raven had to carry Beast Boy, but they all made it down the stairs and into the basement. Robin took a birdarang from his belt and slit open a box still packed from when they had chased the Brotherhood of Evil. Two thick, fluffy sleeping bags spilled out, and Robin laid one across the cold cement floor and flung the other on top of the five friends.

It was Cyborg's comment that calmed down Starfire. "It looks like you're about to have your first real Earth slumber party, Star."

An hour and twenty minutes later they were huddled in the middle of a fort Beast Boy and Starfire had constructed out of boxes, tumbled together in a nest of blankets, very warm, very comfortable, and no one noticed that the storm had long been over.

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**011. Blend In**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

The others had long since gone to see Terra, although only Beast Boy had made any attempt to speak to her. Now, Raven watched her from a distance, and came to two conclusions.

The first was that Terra _did _remember. She chose to leave it behind, to move on and blend in, and Raven thinks that's probably a good thing, because she knows deep down none of them will ever trust anyone enough again to let anyone else join- or rejoin- the Titans. Terra had _chosen _to become just another anonymous teenager.

The second conclusion was: Raven was jealous.

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**012. World's End**

_Continuity: During _The End _Part 2_

Cyborg had been wandering through the ruined city for a good ten minutes when he heard it. At first, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. The civilians had all been turned to stone, and he was deeply afraid that the remaining Titans had suffered the same fate. He had not seen any of them since they'd been thrown….

It wasn't his imagination. Someone was singing.

"World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed, dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right? Right. You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched…It's the end of the world as we know it, it's the end of the world as we know it…"

There was only one person, only one high, piping voice that could possibly be singing_ that_ at this point in time. Starfire didn't know the song, and Robin wouldn't be singing, which left…

"It's the ennnndd of the wooorrld as we know it…"

Cyborg skidded around the corner and nearly ran into Beast Boy. He caught him and hugged him, relieved that at least one of his family was still alive and well.

"And I feel fiiine…" Beast Boy sang softly, grinning up at his best friend.

"C'mon, Cy, let's go find the others."

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**013. Flyswatter**

_Anytime_

She hadn't meant to do it.

It had started innocently enough, really. She had been reading, and a fly had been buzzing around her head, and she had swatted it. Simple. It happened all the time.

Except….

Except she hadn't noticed the fly was green. Except it had fallen from her hand and turned into Beast Boy as he hit the ground, barely conscious, badly injured. Except that after he had coughed out a weak _sorry_ and smiled sheepishly up at her, he'd passed out.

Three days ago.

So now Raven was sitting beside his bed in the medical bay, exhausted from healing a broken arm and leg and several cracked ribs, and staring at her hands where she imagined bloodstains. There weren't any, but all the same, she imagined there were.

She looked up at a tiny noise. Beast Boy had shifted and opened one eye, the one not swollen shut. He grinned weakly when he saw her. "Hey, Rae. So, uh…wanna help me get rid of all our flyswatters?"

She lunged over the bed and hugged him, ignoring when all the pillows in the room burst into feathery clouds.

"Don't you _ever_ do that again!"

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**014. Love You**

"Love you."

They were two simple words, a quiet phrase spoken every night before they went to sleep. She doesn't remember when the tradition started although she imagines it involved something breaking. Probably a light bulb. It always seemed to be a light bulb.

His masked eyes are watching her, waiting for his answer, smiling gently. It isn't a romantic gesture, not really. They are words he has said to the other Titans as well and meant just as strongly, more strongly when it came to a certain alien princess. They are words addressed not to his team, nor even to his friends, but to his family. He is not the only one who says them- most often they are delivered by green eyes and a fanged grin, though she is not quite sure those are platonic, as Robin's undoubtedly are.

She admits only to herself how her heart seems to swell whenever she hears those two innocent words from any of her family. They are her lifeline. This is her home. This is somewhere she belongs.

"Love you too."

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**GuardianSaiyoko: **The last shot is something of a gift for my friend and little brother ShinobiCyrus. I assume Beast Boy does have claws from the damage he inflicts on Cyborg and his bed during _The Beast Within. _And, I have no idea where the rest of these came from. ...Reviews?


	5. Pause

**Disclaimer:** I wish, but I'd probably go bankrupt. Dragons...sculpture, clothing, hats...I just can't help buying them...

**Whitewater**

**Pause**

**----------------------------------------------------------------**

**015. Wish Granted**

_Anytime_**  
**

"I wish that I had the ability to breathe underwater."

"Wish granted, but you're a fish." He smiled softly, eyes closed and basking in the warm sunlight. He shifted slightly and felt grass brush against the back of his neck. "I wish…" He thought for a while. He could hardly make a wish like hers, to breathe underwater, because he already had that wish. He even had his addendum to that wish. "I wish I had a sandwich," he said finally, and he was sure she could hear the smile in his voice.

"…That seems a very…odd wish."

"Yeah, but it's more likely to come true," he countered, laughing. A light breeze blew past, shuddering through his hair and bringing the distant joyful shouts of Cyborg and Robin playing catch.

A gentle laugh answered him. "Wish granted, but it is a ham sandwich."

He made a face. "Aww man, that's just…cruel."

"…I wish that Robin would join in this game as well."

"Wish granted, but….but I can't think of anything to add that would make you regret that one." Well, he could, but nothing that did not seem cruel. "I wish Raven would play, too."

"Wish granted, but she wishes for you not to speak."

"…Yeah. She would." His voice is almost wistful, and finally she props herself up on her elbow and looks at him. He is smiling, eyes closed and hands hooked behind his head, but both his ears are tilted towards the tree where Raven sits reading. She cannot help smiling at how content he looks.

Then their communicators ring all at once, and they are up and moving in a split second, book and ball beneath the tree and indentations in the grass from where they have spent a lazy afternoon.

It's those peaceful snatches of time that make everything worth it.

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**016. Waking Life**

_After Season Five_ **  
**

Beast Boy kind of enjoys having insomnia.

For one thing, there's just so much more _time_ now. He never realized just how much he could get done in an extra four hours or so. His room is…well, not clean, but now it's more of an _organized_ mess. There's a nice clear path along one side, and if he has to do some wild acrobatics to get from the path to the bed, well that's kind of fun, too. He can always shift but sometimes somersaulting across the room is just more fun.

For another thing, he never realized it before, but none of the others sleep very much. _Someone_'_s_ always awake, whether it's Robin pacing in the room the rest of them have secretly dubbed the Birdcave- the one filled with the clippings about Slade- or Raven sitting in the kitchen reading and sipping herbal tea. He didn't realize before that her tea had caffeine in it and suddenly it seems much more appetizing to him. He's found out that Tamaraneans only need a few hours of sleep a night, and Cyborg doesn't need very long to recharge, and Robin is ridiculously addicted to coffee. So one in the morning might find him out flying with Starfire, or lifting weights with Cyborg- as a gorilla, of course- or trying to beat his high score in a video game.

And best of all, he's found that Raven is more willing to talk at sunrise than at any other time.

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**017. We Are One**

_Not long after _The End**  
**

Robin caught them at it first.

Starfire cares deeply for him, and she knows it and she hopes he does too, but there are some things she just can't see him doing with her, like playing Beast Boy's word games or watching Disney movies at two in the morning.

So when he finds her watching The Lion King in the common room, the characters singing on the screen and Beast Boy prancing delightedly around the room as a green lion cub, she doesn't expect him to come back the next night with the sequel and sit down beside her and silently hand her a bowl of popcorn. It both surprises and delights her.

She didn't realize there were more than the three of them in the room until the green-maned cub leapt in the air and twisted trying to swat a black butterfly. Raven's projection fluttered across the room and danced above the coffee table and Starfire turned her head to see that Raven was standing behind the couch, leaning forward and resting her arms along the backrest, eyes intent on the screen.

Robin is humming, she notices next, and Beast Boy the lion cub is twining against Raven's ankles behind the couch and purring. Raven isn't discouraging him; in fact, she looks like she might be smiling.

Starfire couldn't help but sing along to the next song that came up, wondering of Robin would join in. "You'll see every day, that we'll never turn away, when it seems all your dreams come undone…."

He did. He leaned back and smiled up at her and Raven and Beast Boy back in human form, crouched on the back of the couch. "We will stand by your side, filled with hope and filled with pride…"

"We are more than we are, we are one." Starfire loves the way her voice weaves with his and rings out strong.

Beast Boy started singing on the next line, not terribly well but not badly, and Starfire likes her friend's voice enough that it's all right if he's a little bit off key. "If there's so much I must be, can I still just be me, the way I am?"

She thinks she hears Robin jog his elbow and mutter, "That's a girl's line," but she might be imagining it, and anyway they all forgot it when Raven, eyes unmoving, sang softly, "Can I trust in my own heart, or I am just some part of some big plan?"

Robin smiles again and leans back just enough to make Raven and Beast Boy lose their balance and fall beside them on the couch, and then he begins alternating lines with Starfire as those two scramble to untangle themselves. "Even those who are gone are with us as we go on, Your journey has only begun."

"Tears of pain, tears of joy, one thing nothing can destroy…"

"Is our pride, deep inside, we are one."

"We are one, you and I, we are like the earth and sky," and suddenly Beast Boy started singing again, still tangled in Raven's cloak and smiling sheepishly up at her.

"One family under the sun…"

And Raven sighed and joined in, so that when Cyborg wandered in to see where everyone had gotten to during the night there were four voices joined. "All the wisdom to lead, all the courage that you need, you will find when you see…"

And Cyborg whispered, smiling,

"We are one."

**GuardianSaiyoko:** I apologize for the sheer cheesiness of that last one. I'm in a bizarre mood, I got invited to an Iron Maiden concert but both the concert and the guy- the extremely attractive and awesome guy- are across the country from me.

I could have _cried._

Ah well, one day. And I Wish I learned from a girl I was friends with at my first high school, it's a great way to pass a boring class- and when your notes get confiscated thr instructor just kinda stares at them in confusion. It's funny.

Saiyoko

...Reviews?


	6. Animal Instincts

**Disclaimer:** You know that plot device where two people who don' get along are trapped in close proximity to each other for an indefinite period of time? Have you ever been locked in a closet with someone you don't particularly like? Because I have, and people, _it does not work that way._

And chances are I will still abuse that device wildly at some point in time.

**Whitewater**

**Animal Instincts**

**-------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**018. Herbal Tea**

_During Season Five _

"What's in this, anyway? This isn't what you normally drink." Beast Boy sniffed at his tea suspiciously as Raven ignored his question. Cyborg looked up and was about to answer when Beast Boy's eyes went wide and his ears shot back. Thirty seconds later he was guzzling the tea and holding out his thermos for more. Raven raised an eyebrow, but refilled it.

"This's good…" the changeling slurred, and giggled. Raven looked up slowly, wondering if she should be alarmed. Cyborg was starting to look pretty worried as Beast Boy reached for the kettle over the fireplace himself and…drank straight from it. Raven's other eyebrow joined the first in her hairline.

"Beast Boy," she said cautiously, "are you feeling all right?"

Another giggle answered her. She exchanged glances with Cyborg as Beast Boy flopped over onto his back and rolled around on his sleeping bag.

"Raven," Cyborg said quietly, watching Beast Boy abruptly dart into a crouch and start pouncing at flies, "what, exactly, is in that tea?"

Wordlessly, she handed him the package. He scrutinized it carefully and then groaned. "Uh, Rae?"

"Yes?" Beast Boy had shifted into a wolf and was chasing his own tail. As she watched, he switched to a monkey and swung himself up into the branches of the tree she was under, before shifting into a squirrel and racing down the trunk and onto her shoulder where he chattered at her a moment before darting to the ground and turning back to human, rolling on his back and wriggling around.

"What's catmint?"

"It's the British term for catnip," she said absently. After a moment her eyes widened. "Oh."

Cyborg swallowed hard. "Catnip. You…you just gave _Beast Boy_ catnip."

"It doesn't affect humans," she defended herself. "And it's supposed to have a calming effect."

"On humans," Cyborg grit out, trying to ignore the green bush baby that had just wrapped its way around his neck. "_Not on Beast Boy._" Okay, make that the green snake that had just slithered back to the ground and was lunging and snapping at the crackling fire. "How long have Star and Rob been gone now?"

"They've only been gone about half an hour. It will probably take them at least that long again to finish scouting, with Robin's paranoia." Beast Boy shifted into a kitten and darted around the fire, leapt onto Raven's shoulder and started batting at her hood enthusiastically. "I don't suppose you have any idea how long he's likely to act like this?" Raven asked, annoyed.

Cyborg checked his arm. "It's been around ten minutes, so about five more. It doesn't last very long."

"You sound like you've seen this happen before."

"Eh heh…" Cyborg paused. "Well, see, there was this time I had played a prank on him, and it involved catnip, and….long story short, if he's not back to normal by the time Robin and Starfire come back Robin is gonna _kill_ me."

Raven reached up and dragged the shifter down by the scruff of his neck. He changed back to human abruptly and fell face-up across her lap, purring up at her delightedly. "Um, is he going to remember any of this?"

"Unfortunately…yes. And he's gonna be embarrassed when he snaps out of it." Raven sighed as Beast Boy pushed his head into her hands with an even louder purr and wriggled deeper into her lap. She noticed his eyes were dilated.

"Yes. Yes he is."

And about five minutes later when Beast Boy snapped out of it and found himself curled in Raven's lap and purring, he blushed a deep crimson, shifted to a squirrel, darted up the tree and refused to come down until morning.

When they returned from their patrol, Starfire was confused and Robin was suspicious, but Cyborg had convinced Raven to burn the package the tea came in. So, as Cyborg put it, "There is no proof."

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**019. The Beast Boy List**

_Anytime_

Raven paused to read the list that had appeared overnight, posted on the wall between her room and Beast Boy's and written in bright red ink. At the top it said "Things Beast Boy is NOT ALLOWED TO DO." She skimmed it curiously, reading out loud.

"No reenacting scenes from Jaws in the bay, the emergency button is for emergencies _only_, beating Cyborg's high score is not an emergency, the Tower is in no way to resemble Jurassic Park _especially not the dinosaurs_, you are not a one-man band, your room is not a den of any kind, giving Starfire Pixie Stix and claiming they are pixie dust from Peter Pan is not acceptable behavior, Robin is not to be addressed at any time as Leader of the Christmas Elves or any variation thereof, you are not allowed to do anything you saw Baran Rang do once, no caffeine ever again for any reason, please no repeats of the Catnip Incident, Run and Live is not an appropriate battle cry when training with Raven….how many of these _are_ there?"

She was lifting the first sheet of paper to find more underneath when an answer came from behind her.

"A few hundred, and Cyborg keeps adding more." She turned to see a grinning changeling and sighed.

"You're proud of this, aren't you."

"This one's my favorite." He flipped to the third page and pointed at _You cannot have flashbacks to battles you did not participate in. _Raven raised an eyebrow.

"I don't think I even want to know the story behind that one." She scanned the list again and pointed to Number 237. "I like that one."

Beast Boy read it. " 'If the thought of something makes you giggle for longer than fifteen seconds you are to assume you are not allowed to do it.' " He mock-scowled. "But I miss out on so much following that one."

Raven noticed that while most of the list was in red ink, some of it was in blue and a few oddly-worded additions were in orange. Glancing around, she found a purple pen in a basket nearby with the other colors, picked it up, and started adding to the list.

"Hey!"

She ignored him. "No boomerangs, no coffee breaks during battle, you do not have lycanthropy, rubbing Cyborg's head for luck is in bad taste, you are _not_ the atheist chaplain, paintball is not to be played within the Tower, turning into various animals at the same house on Hallowe'en is not acceptable behavior, the sound system is not to be used in conjunction with Right Said Fred's _I'm Too Sexy_, you are not allowed to have a didgeridoo for any reason, we don't have nor will we ever have a soundtrack, any suggestion Robin has to ponder the full implications of for more than a minute is forbidden, tofu turkey is not a Tamaranean delicacy, you cannot change Cyborg's fight sims to interactive versions of Pac-Man, Dig Dug, or any other arcade game, you are not from Margaritaville, you cannot refer to Robin as Dad no matter how amusing the context, the Titans East has neither the time nor the inclination to hear what you did with six boxes of Fruit Roll-Ups…"

"Dude, how do you even _know _about all this?"

"The air vents are not to be used as secret passageways under any circumstances, you are not allowed to attempt something you saw in a cartoon while in the T-Car, you are not allowed to sing 'Henry the VIII I am' until verse 68 _ever again_, no one wants to hear the explanation about why you have an inflatable sheep, you are not the Chosen One, attaching Cyborg to a clapper is inappropriate and cruel-"

"But funny."

"-up down up down left right left right A B A B Start is _not _ to be used as a security system code, you are not allowed to reenact _any _musical in its entirety, or in parts, the Tower is in no way at any point in time including Hallowe'en to resemble Hogwarts and you are not to resemble the giant squid, a flea collar is a bad idea, you are not an Animagus, the T-car does not have a flux capacitator, pointy ears do not make you Spock, we do not have a Batsignal nor a Titan signal and it is therefore not necessary to shout 'to the Batmobile Robin!', especially as we also do not have a Batmobile-"

Beast Boy groaned and slumped against the wall. "Rae, you're taking all the fun out of everything, here."

"-my name is not Rae, Rae-Rae, Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda or anything other than Raven, we do not require a karaoke machine, no one is after your lucky charms, you are not to lock Robin and Starfire in a closet for any length of time even though it 'seems necessary', you are not anyone's daemon nor should you pretend to be, Jareth the Goblin King does not reside in your Labyrinth game and it is wrong to convince Starfire that he does, you are not to take the books from my room and use them to build a maze in the common room in the middle of the night-"

"What about during the day?"

"-or during the day. The common room is not to be used for bowling, football, rugby, or any other outside sport or ping pong or dodgeball, a full minute of stunned silence means 'My God what did you _do_?' _not_ 'please continue,' you can't have anything you saw on an infomercial at three a.m. on PBS, you can't have any item you can't request with a straight face, Starfire's cooking is not to be used as weaponry, the fact that something in your room is growling in no way entitles you to sleep in my room in any form, you are not to attempt to shift into Digimon or any other creature you've seen in a cartoon-"

Beast Boy held up his hands. "Okay, okay! I get it!" He sighed. "You guys are killing all my hobbies…"

Raven smirked. "That's the idea."

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**020. Homesick**

_During Season Five_

Unable to sleep in the middle of the Sahara desert, no matter what form he took, Beast Boy had called each of his friends one by one on their communicators and ended up talking to Cyborg since Raven was asleep and Starfire and Robin were…not answering. Since the two of them were currently together somewhere in the American Southwest, he was more concerned for his mental health if he _did_ reach them than their well-being, as he assumed they were… perfectly fine.

So he was playing a sort-of game with Cyborg, who was…actually, Beast Boy had no idea where he was. It didn't matter, really.

"I miss sleeping in a bed."

"There was a bed somewhere in that room of yours? I miss meat."

"Dude, that's sick. I miss air conditioning."

"I miss movie nights."

"I miss video game tournaments."

"I just miss video games."

"I even miss Star's cooking."

"…You know, I was gonna laugh at you for that one, grass stain, until I realized I do too. I miss the music from Robin's room late at night when he wouldn't go to sleep."

Laughter. "I miss playing Stankball."

"…I miss the others."

Silence. Then, "Yeah. Me too."

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**GuardianSaiyoko:** You can buy or make catnip tea and it is supposed to be calming. Catnip also effects wolves and certain breeds of dogs, incidentally, which is how I got the idea that it could affect Beast Boy. The list is inspired by Skippy's List, which is extremely entertaining, and the list is also likely to become a running joke. Feel free to add things.

The reason Raven is reading the list? FFNet does not allow lists. Watch Sai bend the rules...

...Reviews?


	7. War Games

**Disclaimer: **If I owned them, _Spellbound_ would have gone down differently. I have this slight issue with not being able to differentiate between 'good' dragons and 'evil' dragons. No, I just kind go 'ooh! dragon!' and then I'm gone. I know...three people who I would probably not ditch for a dragon. Probably.

**Whitewater**

**Quality Time**

**------------------------------------------------------------------------------**

**021. Speechless**

_Anytime_**  
**

Sometimes Beast Boy has trouble stringing words together, and it's for that reason that he actually doesn't speak to Robin much. Cyborg has never commented nor seemed to care and Starfire often has the same problem, though with more reason.

He was uneasy speaking to Raven for a long time, too, but he tried anyway even if sometimes she scoffed when his mind blanked and he found himself struggling for the words he _knew_ he had a moment ago. After the Beast incident he didn't mind so much, and she was the one who came down to talk to him when he was out at 'his' rock, because she could feel the new fear and wariness whenever his train of thought derailed so spectacularly.

And when he trails off and goes silent for a bit, she doesn't say a word.

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**022. War Games**

_During Season Five_**  
**

She watched him from across the fire, huddled in her spare cloak and still shivering with his eyes closed. If he moved any closer to the fire he was likely to fall in.

"Raven," he said, and she looked up quickly because he'd said it very, very quietly and he never said anything quietly.

"Yes?"

He kept his eyes closed as he answered her. "Are you ever afraid that when we split up like this we won't see the others again?"

She was silent. She didn't know how to answer.

"Or that when we finally get back home it won't be home anymore? Like, I dunno, it's been empty so long that it just doesn't feel like home. I bet there's a layer of dust over everything by now." His voice was sad, wistful…and young.

And she still didn't know how to answer him.

And for some reason, watching the firelight play against his skin and the shadows of his borrowed cloak, she thought of wars. She thought of how she hoped he'd never be in a war, because although she or Cyborg or Robin could handle it if they really had to, and Starfire is descended from a warrior race, she thinks a part of him would not survive killing another living being. He won't even eat meat. And he still hasn't recovered from Terra's death; she can feel his distress whenever something triggered the memory.

But unfortunately, they are in a war, now. The Brotherhood of Evil is targeting them and people like them all over the world. She's afraid that somehow, someway, one of them will die. And if it was Robin, or Starfire, or Cyborg, or Beast Boy himself…she's not sure _she _would survive that blow, and she's almost positive he won't.

He was still waiting for her answer.

She stood up slowly and crossed to his side of the fire. For the past week the two of them have camped together on a chain of islands, looking for someone whose name she can't remember but that lives in the coral reefs nearby; and for the past week they've slept on opposite sides of camp. She changes that now, bringing their two parts of the T-ship together in a giant lean-to with a flicker of dark energy and resettling herself across from him in the ship's shade. He curled further into the cloak and shifted toward the rock that now formed a back wall, finding much more comfort in the sudden makeshift cave than the open fire. She knows none of his animal instincts like to be that exposed and wonders why she hasn't done this before now.

A bittersweet memory flooded her mind, of what might have been the one time Starfire got anything like 'girl talk.'

_Terra played with a lock of hair. "Yeah, I know it's unlikely. But still…what if it were to happen? What if the boys were to get drafted?"_

_'Can we even be drafted?' Raven wondered silently. 'Is that allowed for orphaned superheroes? Once we're all past eighteen, anyway?" And that led to her spoken response, "They can't be, they're not old enough."_

_ "I _know_, but what about when they _are_? What then?"_

_That was when Star had spoken up, her eyes glowing fiercely. "Your army cannot have them. They are _our_ boys."_

Raven sighed deeply. She and Starfire had remained protective of the male Titans and each other, true, but Terra…well. That was well in the past now.

Another memory came unbidden, a brief flash of Beast Boy shivering as he tried to explain, their first night on the islands, what a sandstorm in the desert is like- the way it can strip flesh from bones in seconds and how if he wasn't a shifter his first sandstorm would have been his last. She's not quite sure what that has to do with anything, except that both memories involve losing him. She almost missed his quiet whisper.

"I even miss Star's hugs."

So she moved across the empty space between them and hugged him, and unlike the last time he hugged her back, tightly. It wasn't a Tamaranean deathgrip but it would do.

And she finally replied to his question, in a near-silent whisper.

"Terrified."

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**GuardianSaiyoko:** Uh, yeah, sorry my humor is missing here. Word of advice- when you're in the medical field, coming home from a full day of classes and then watching the final episode of MASH? Not a good idea.

So, enjoy ShinobiCyrus's additions to the Beast Boy list:

Beast Boy is not allowed under ANY circumstances to be on the furniture in ANY animal form.

Convincing Starfire she needs to marry Robin to avoid deportation is deceitfully cruel, no matter how funny it is.

To avoid another catnip incident, BB is not allowed ANYWHERE in the vicinity of any Pet's Mart or pet-care aisle of the neighborhood grocery store.

For the sake of our viewers, BB is not permitted to dress as a smurf, Master Yoda, the Green Goblin, or the Green Lantern for Halloween.

Reenacting 'Snakes on a Plane' aboard the T-Ship is forbidden.

Any copy of Austin Power's movies are not allowed on Titan's Tower's premises.

While they may share the 'green' attribute, Beast Boy is not- in any way, shape, form, or 'bad-assity'- related to Halo's Master Chief'.

Last but not least: "Beast Boy is NOT too sexy for his shirt"

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I would like to add that a variation of that last one is an actual rule at my house, due to a very interesting camping trip and my twin brother's sleep deprivation during said trip.

Saiyoko


	8. Live Forever

**Disclaimer:** Well, I do have a cat, but that's really more of a partnership than an ownership. **  
**

**Live Forever**

**------------------------------------------------------------------- **

**023. Alternative**

_Anytime_**  
**

Sometimes, more than anything else, Beast Boy longed to be fully human again. But at the same time…He couldn't even _remember_ not being green, not being a shape shifter. He couldn't begin to imagine how much different his life would have been.

No Doom Patrol.

No Teen Titans.

He wasn't even sure he'd still be _alive_ if he couldn't fly.

And, he was used to it, now. Being green, and especially to being able to shift. He'd talked to Cyborg about it, once, because Raven had always been a half-demon and Starfire had always been Tamaranean…but… it was different for Cyborg, too. Cyborg _remembered._ Beast Boy…did not. Oh, he'd tried- he'd tried a lot of times, actually- but those memories weren't coming back. Ever, as far as he could tell. He wasn't even sure he wanted them back, because then the loss of what-could-have-been would be more real. Normally he didn't go in for the whole 'everything happens for a reason' theory, but when he considered the life he had now, living in Titans' Tower with his family, sometimes it struck him as an odd karmic balance. After all, he'd lost count of the number of people he'd met who had claimed they'd give up everything they had for the ability to fly. In a way, he _had_ given up everything for flight.

He loved flying, though. He loved flight, he loved to shift into a cheetah and just run, he loved being able to swim for hours in the sea. He liked having all his animal senses, he even kind of liked his fangs and claws and ears, most of the time. They were another thing he couldn't remember being without.

So, yeah, sometimes he wished to just be normal. He didn't miss it exactly, he couldn't miss what he couldn't remember, but he wanted it sometimes.

So whenever he got in that mood, he went flying.

----------------------------------------------------

**024. Beacon**

_During _How Long is Forever?**  
**

When Starfire found herself in an unfamiliar Jump, she gravitated automatically towards the building that drew her like a beacon, that would always draw any of the Titans as strongly as a beacon- a part of her almost felt there should be a light shining from the Tower, from home, to guide her there.

-------------------------------------------------------

**025. Cliff**

_Anytime_**  
**

He shivered a little in the cool night air, then glanced at her to see she was ready and waiting. What had started out as one of Robin's training exercises had turned into a weekly challenge.

He closed his eyes and stepped off the roof as she did the same.

As always, he shifted and snapped out his wings inches above the ocean, sending plumes of water skidding into the sky on either side of him. His talons were below the surface of the water this time, though, so he'd gotten better.

Glancing to the side, so had she. A trail of dark energy showed where'd she shot into the water and he wheeled sharply as she shot back up, the two of them climbing through the sky back to the top of the Tower. She gave him the barest half-smile, acknowledging that she'd won _again_, and he sighed.

For some reason, it always felt like he was jumping off more than one kind of cliff when they did this.

------------------------------------------------------

**026. Death**

_Anytime_**  
**

"Where do you think we go when we die?" Cyborg asked suddenly, startling Beast Boy. Glancing around the room, the shifter realized everyone else had long since gone to sleep while they played Mega Monkeys VI.

"I don't think it matters," he replied after a long moment, tossing his controller aside. "I mean, I'll find out when I get there, and I'm not in any hurry."

"Humor me."

Beast Boy shrugged. "It'd be fun to be a ghost." He turned to his best friend and grinned. "I mean c'mon, poltergeist equals the _ultimate_ prankster. Dude, that'd be sweet."

Cyborg laughed, his dark mood broken. "I should have known you'd say something like that."

-----------------------------------------------------------

**027. Endings**

_Anytime_**  
**

"I'm gonna live forever."

Starfire laughed.

He lifted himself onto one elbow and mock-glared down at her. "I _am_." His voice came dangerously close to whining, but the tilt of his ears told her he was still amused. "Really, I'm gonna live forever or die in the attempt," and he struck a stupid cliché superhero pose, grinning when she laughed again. While it was much easier than tricking a laugh out of Raven, he loved Star's laughter, too. Actually, he liked hearing all his friends laugh, but right now that wasn't the point.

"_Seriously_, Starfire! I'm going to live forever, even if I have to become a ghost to do it."

"You realize there's a logical problem with that, right?" a new voice commented wryly. Beast Boy flopped back onto the warm pavement on the roof and waved up at Robin, before laughing himself and shifting into a hummingbird. He darted around Starfire for a moment, delighting her, and then dove from the roof to the sea before flying back to his room, leaving the two alone.

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**028. Freedom**

_Anytime_**  
**

He loved flying. He really, really loved flying. He couldn't help but feel sorry for Cyborg and Robin, sometimes, knowing they couldn't just leap from the roof and fly like he and the girls could. He wondered how come things never blew up when Raven was flying unless she wanted them to, because he always felt great in the air and couldn't imagine anyone could fly and _not_ get that kind of rush.

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**029. Ghost**

_Before _Go!**  
**

Sometimes, there were advantages to being small and quick, as opposed to large and brawny.

Normally, it would have been no problem to grab breakfast at a hotel with one of those continental breakfasts- it wasn't like they expected anyone to just walk in off the street and sit down for a meal- but they did tend to remember that no one green had rented a room recently. So unfortunately for him, he had to settle for sneaking in invisibly and snatching whatever he could carry, then stealing through the shadows to get out. Sometimes he had to shift to get out unnoticed but that usually meant sacrificing the food, so instead he learned to move as invisibly as a ghost and continued towards Jump City.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**001.2- Holiday**

_During _Refuge**  
**

Beast Boy hunched in front of the fireplace, giggling as he twirled the pronged fork and watched the marshmallow crisp. "I've always wanted to do this."

"Of course," a dry voice answered him, a thick blanket dropping onto his head. He shook it off and felt it settle around his shoulders before smiling at his 'roommate.' She sighed and rolled her eyes, but sat down beside him. Well, floated in the air beside him, anyway. "Robin called." There was no phone in her apartment, so he knew she meant through the communicator. "The Tower should be ready for us to move in by the end of the week." She eyed him, still shivering under the thick blanket, and sighed again. "You'd be freezing if you were still in the park," she said without thinking. He glared at her, but huddled further under the blanket. "Beast Boy, it's only sixty-five degrees in here. What do you think it is outside?"

He didn't answer.

His communicator beeped before she could say another word, and he turned away so she wasn't visible when he answered. "Yeah? What's up?"

Cyborg's voice emanated from his hands. "Yo, I just wanted to wish ya a merry Christmas, grass stain. Star and Rob are off somewhere pretending they're not on a date, and Raven wasn't answering."

Beast Boy was too busy gaping at the communicator to realize that Cyborg had apparently called everyone else before him. "It's _Christmas_?"

Cyborg laughed. "Man, how can you not know these things? I gotta go, but come by the Pizza Place later tonight if you want. If you see Raven, tell her she's invited too." The com clicked off.

Beast Boy looked up at Raven, who looked as surprised as him, and after a long moment they both spoke at the same time.

"Merry Christmas."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

**030. Identity**

_Anytime_**  
**

When Cyborg asked him who he thought Robin really was, he couldn't help it. He laughed. He didn't understand, really, why anyone wanted to know that- Robin was Robin. He'd been someone else, once, but in the way that he had once been Garfield Logan, or Cyborg Victor Stone. Now, he was _Robin_, and the only difference was that he'd more or less given up his original identity willingly.

------------------------------------------------------------

**031. Journeys**

_Anytime_**  
**

Starfire loved going to the Mall of Shopping. She loved it even more when her friends came with. Naturally she was ecstatic whenever she could convince Robin to come, but really her favorite companion on those trips was Beast Boy.

True, she didn't feel the same way for him that she did for their masked leader, but Beast Boy knew how to make even the simplest things fun. Even when things went _wrong_ they were still _fun_. Every little trip anywhere had the potential to be an Adventure.

"Hey," Beast Boy joked from somewhere behind her, "you push a button and these things talk? Man, these kids are spoiled- I had to talk _for_ my toys!"

The elderly couple watching them laughed. They'd been watching for a while; they seemed to find some great private amusement in watching two of Jump City's teenage protectors act like little kids.

He grabbed a toy horse and grinned at her as she turned in midair to face him. "Race ya!"

When Robin asked them later where they'd been all day, he just sighed when they admitted to having been playing in a toy store.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**032. Kindness**

_Anytime_**  
**

While it was true that all the Titans had their 'spots' on the island- the roof, the rock, the gym- they all had somewhere in Jump's mainland too. She knew Beast Boy would spend hours at the zoo, leaning against a railing and staring down at the caged animals, and that Robin tended to roost on top of buildings in the late hours of the night. She wasn't entirely sure where Starfire or Cyborg went.

She liked to spend time in a corner of a small coffee shop on Main. It was actually a combination coffee shop and bookstore, and they had poetry readings every Thursday night; she very rarely read her own, but she did enjoy listening to others' poems, and she had a decent enough friendship with the owner of the shop. Actually, she had friendships with several of the other regulars, too.

There, everyone was creepy, so she was normal.

--------------------------------------------------------------

**033. Leadership**

_After Season Five_**  
**

There was never really any question of who the leader was. Well, on occasion Cyborg would challenge Robin for it, in one way or another, but that never lasted long. Beast Boy and the girls really didn't have any desire to lead. They could, Beast Boy had more than proved that with the whole Brotherhood of Evil thing, but they didn't really _want_ to.

Leadership for a gang of superheroes meant more than the position of commander in battle. It meant responsibility for decisions that could cost the lives of their family- and none of them particularly wanted the weight of that responsibility, but it was Robin, already used to feeling responsible for Gotham City, who took it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

**034. Media**

_Anytime_**  
**

If there was one aspect of being a superhero Raven disliked the most, it was the media. Tabloids entertained her, true, but not when they were _about _ her.

Cyborg saw the headline just before dark energy tore it to shreds and wouldn't stop laughing about it for a good hour and a half, and then wouldn't stop teasing her about it for a good week.

Honestly, how could anyone believe she was in a relationship with _Starfire_?

----------------------------------------------------------------

**035. Neutrality**

_After_ Lightspeed

It took more to changing sides than Kid Flash seemed to understand. There was a kind of wild freedom that came from being on the 'bad' side; if you wanted something it was yours. Things like laws and ethics didn't enter the picture. Going good- and she had to keep silencing the part of her subconscious that kept giggling and wailing 'come over to the_ light_ side'- was giving up a lot of that freedom.

But then, trying to lead the HIVE Five had long since ceased to feel like freedom.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

**036. Ocean**

_Anytime_**  
**

He loved living near the ocean, usually. It meant that at any time, all he had to do was dive from the roof and he could be off on his own for hours, as a bird or a dolphin or anything he wanted, with an entire coast to play in. And he did, naturally; it was in his nature to spend some time just playing. It kept him sane, or close to it, and he didn't know _how_ Robin could stand being so…obsessive about work.

Sometimes, though, he couldn't stand the water being so near. Those were the nights he couldn't sleep.

----------------------------------------------------------------

**037. Pain**

_Anytime_**  
**

He finished wrapping the bandage around his arm, both proud and a little disturbed that the pain didn't bother him. He was relatively certain that it would have, once, a long time ago- when his name wasn't Robin.

That, to him, seemed a very, _very_ long time ago.

------------------------------------------------------------------

**038. Quirks**

_Not long after _Go!**  
**

There were a few more quirks to get used to than there would be between normal roommates. Between Beast Boy's tendency for his living space to resemble an animal's den, Raven's intense desire for privacy, Starfire's disturbing ideas of what was edible and what wasn't, and Cyborg's competitive streak-not to mention his own competitive streak, which was probably twice as wide- Robin came very close to having a good old-fashioned breakdown in the first week of trying to get them all to live together without irritating each other to death.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

**039. Resilience**

_After _The End**  
**

He was very proud of his team. They'd gone through a lot together, but they always managed to bounce back. Damage was done- he doubted any of them would ever entirely heal from Terra's betrayal, and he at least still had nightmares of Trigon's brief reign- but they still continued to fight.

They always would.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

**040. Secrets**

_After Season Five_**  
**

They all had their secrets. Some of them, like Robin, guarded theirs more closely- he had shared one of them once, a photo he'd felt the need to lock in a suitcase, but he never did explain why he had a picture of Bruce Wayne and his protégé. They could guess, but in the end it was still a guess- it wouldn't be totally unlike Robin to have that picture just to throw enemies off guard.

Robin's best kept secret, though, was how much he had enjoyed being Red X. There was a certain freedom in the role that he knew he would never have again; Red X was a villain and a loner, no team to watch out for, no rules to follow.

Sometimes, he really missed that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**041. Territorial**

_Anytime_**  
**

For all he loved to tease Raven about being territorial, he knew he was worse, and it bothered him. The difference, though, was Raven was only territorial about his room. Every fiber of his being recognized their island and the Tower as _his_ and the team as _his _and sometimes, especially for a short while after he first became the Beast and later after he defended Raven and his home, the intensity of it frightened him. The part of him that was very much a wild animal was also very much more territorial than Raven would ever be.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**042. Unity**

_After _Titans Together**  
**

"Titans, go!"

She heard that in her _sleep_.

Without fail, every dream, even the nightmares, always included that phrase. "Titans, _go_!" To be perfectly honest, she loved hearing it. It was an affirmation of her home, her family, and her team, which were all the same thing, really.

But lately, "Titans, _together!_" had just as much of a ring to it, maybe more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

**043. Vacation**

_After _Titans East part II**  
**

"Dudes, dudettes; ROADTRIP!"

In retrospect, she really should have known from those words that this was a Bad Idea. Failing that, it should have occurred to her that she was in a vehicle with Beast Boy and Starfire, and she especially should have started having a bad feeling when Robin and Cyborg peeled off and left them far behind. Leave it to Cyborg to build a car faster than their jet.

Leave it to her to let Star and Beast Boy _fly_ that jet.

Raven folded her hands behind her head and sighed, glaring up at the metal above them.

They had _no idea_ where they were. Wherever it was, however, the signals from their communicators were being blocked. After a fruitless two hours stumbling around in the forest- the light from Starfire's starbolts could only illuminate so much, and flying through unfamiliar territory in the dark was _never_ a good idea- they'd all agreed to spend the night where they were.

Raven closed her eyes as she heard giggling from beside her. Since this wasn't the best spot to spend the night-actually, it wasn't even a _good_ spot to spend the night- they'd done the best they could. The T-ship was parked against a bank of trees in the tiny clearing, and since they lacked anything even _remotely_ resembling a tent, they had taken what would have been Robin's and Cyborg's sleeping bags and draped them over the wings of the ship to provide shelter. Of course, Robin had packed basic survival gear such as sleeping bags, fire starters, and warmer clothing, but he'd somehow neglected to include a _tent_.

She sat up as Beast Boy tugged down Cyborg's massive sleeping bag and replaced it with his own, before laying the larger one down on the ground. "C'mon, get on top of this one," he told her and Star, grinning. "This'll be warmer."

Sighing, Raven levitated up as he spread the blanket out to encompass most of the ground beneath the wing, then tugged hers and Starfire's bags over it and dove beneath them. The girls followed him and Raven thought with some private amusement that he was really just building a nest under here for himself. Starfire very obviously wasn't cold and Raven liked the cold. "In the morning, we'll take turns flying ahead and work out where we are and how to get home. Agreed?"

Both Beast Boy and Starfire made noises of assent and Raven joined them between the sleeping bags. Beast Boy had crawled around inside them and managed to zip them all together, making one large sleeping bag that held in warmth easily. Raven closed her eyes again and listened as he started another of his word games with Starfire; the object, as far as she could tell, was to take turns telling one line of a story, and the catch was that everything had to rhyme. Starfire was doing surprisingly well.

"One late night three friends spent beneath the stars," Beast Boy started.

Starfire giggled. "Because they did not have the fastest cars."

"And since Rob forgot to pack a tent,"

"Which, right now, would be heaven-sent," Raven muttered, before groaning when she realized she'd just unwittingly joined the game. Beast Boy laughed before Starfire gleefully joined in again. "They built a fort beneath their ship."

"This sure has been one strange trip," Beast Boy said brightly as Raven restrained the urge to smack him.

"That's it, I quit." Laughter greeted her statement as she sighed and pulled her hood on, partly to prepare for sleep, partly to hide her smile. Beast Boy and Starfire shared the ability to turn anything into an adventure, and while this should have been a minor disaster, it felt more like a small vacation.

----------------------------------------------------------------

**044. Wild**

_After _The Beast Within**  
**

It was easy, after a while of living together, to forget that most of them weren't entirely human. After all, there were humans with stranger eating habits than Starfire's, and Raven was more than once mistaken for a Goth. Admittedly Cyborg was a bit more noticeable, in terms of appearance, but he acted like most teenage boys Raven had run into most of the time. Raven could brush each of their minds at the edge of her own perception and they all 'felt' similar.

What always disturbed her slightly was the wild undercurrent to all of Beast Boy's thoughts. It was always there, an animal's instincts surging just beneath his surface thoughts, but after the Beast incident it got worse. It was unsettling and calming at the same time; sometimes when she was awake late at night, she felt like there was a caged lion in the room next to hers, but more often she was comforted by the way his wild side considered this his territory and his pack.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

**045. Xenophobia**

_During Season Five_**  
**

Sometimes, he really hated traveling.

In Jump City, the stares had stopped a long time ago. As strange as they all were, they'd long since become commonplace there, especially after the number of times they'd saved the city. Elsewhere, though…well, he didn't mind visiting Steel City, they were used enough to their own Titans team that the first five Titans weren't so unusual.

This, however, was neither Steel nor Jump, and as his ears were picking up all of the whispers as they walked down the street, Beast Boy had opted to stay in the hotel with Cyborg and Raven rather than explore the city with Robin and Starfire. The whispers didn't seem to bother them. They probably wouldn't have bothered him, once, but he'd gotten used to Jump City.

He missed his home.

------------------------------------------------------------------

**046. Youth**

_During Season Five_**  
**

"You know," Cyborg said suddenly, looking up from the Pocket Gamestation he was fiddling with, "you two should be getting ready for prom right now."

Beast Boy and Raven stared at him. He held up his hands defensively. "Yo, I'm just sayin'! I mean, if it weren't for the Titans an' all, you two'd be at your prom…not chasing the Brotherhood of Evil all over the world."

Raven sighed, shutting the Book of Azar and floating back to the ground. "News flash Cyborg: where I'm from, we didn't really have proms."

"And I kinda doubt I'd have gone," Beast Boy added from where he was sitting beside her, eyeing the tea she'd made. She was keeping an eye on him so he didn't drink any of it; he'd protested that he didn't want any, but the longing look in his eyes was hard to miss. She wondered, a little uneasily, just how addictive catnip was for him if he still seemed to want it so badly even after how embarrassed he'd been when it had worn off before.

"Anyway, I'm gonna get some sleep." Cyborg stood to head for his sleeping bag beside the T-ship. "If they follow the same pattern as the last three nights, Star and Rob should be back from…ah…_patrol_ in about half an hour. G'night, y'all."

Beast Boy flopped backwards onto the ground, closing his eyes and turning his head away from where the tea was, breathing in deeply. Raven returned most of her attention to her book until he spoke.

"Do you miss it?" His voice was wistful and she didn't have to ask what he meant. _Do you miss having the chance to be normal?_

She could have replied that she'd never had the chance to be able to miss it. Could have said that dances weren't her thing anyway.

When she finally did answer him, she lied.

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**047. Zoo**

_Anytime_**  
**

He hated the zoo almost as much as he enjoyed it.

It confused him, the first time he visited a zoo. It took him a long time to work out his conflicting emotions about the place. He liked being around so many animals at once.

It took him a long to time to realize it was the cages that bothered him.

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**GuardianSaiyoko**: Long one. The game played in _Vacation_ is one I play with my twin when we go camping; we've managed to keep it running for an hour before. It's the most fun when you're responding to each other as fast as you can. Live Forever...I have the tendency to insist that I'm going to live forever or die in the attempt. And I am. _Youth_ is not cut off; the ending is for your own interpretation. Walking into hotels you're not staying at and grabbing their continental breakfasts _does_ work, incredibly well in fact, but how I know that is unimportant.

Updates from me could take a while after this- my grandparents are coming to stay with me for a week, and I have enough of a 'secret identity' to hide that Robin would be proud. Between my religion and a few other major secrets, I'm going to be slightly frantic. Plus I have Oral Allergy Syndrome, which you can find information about on Wikipedia, and no matter how many times I explain it to my grandmother she keeps trying to feed me fruits and vegetables.

Later, Sai


	9. Catharsis

**Disclaimer: **I'm aliiive!!! Actually, considering the amount of coffee I've consumed in the last hour, 'swinging from the rafters' is more accurate.I apologize for being gone; there was a family emergency which prompted my whole family, and even some old friends, to confuse me with Dial-a-Shrink. As a result I needed a shrink of some sort myself, which somehow translated to 'watch Harold and Maude, play with the cat, and beat the shit out of enemies in a video game marathon.' Hey, it works.

I'll get to working on One Which Makes the Heart Run Over after class today. For now, enjoy.**  
**

**Catharsis **

**------------------------------------**

**The Catnip Incident **

_Continuity: Anytime_**  
**

Robin glared menacingly at the fridge.

He rather imagined the fridge glared menacingly back.

It was six o'clock on a Saturday evening and Robin was in a bad mood, as Beast Boy had insisted at keeping the thermostat at exactly eighty-three point six degrees all day, which was an agreeable temperature to Beast Boy and insufferably hot to all else concerned, and Raven and Starfire had left for the mall earlier following a look from Raven which Robin had interpreted as meaning, correctly as it happened, something along the general lines of "You had better clean out that fridge before Starfire mistakes whatever is growing in the vegetable drawer and along the left wall for a nice healthy salad."

Unfortunately, the duty of cleaning the fridge could not be shuffled neatly onto Beast Boy unless they wanted no meat at all for the next several weeks- several weeks was the usual time before someone noticed most of the food had long since passed the expiration date- or Cyborg unless they wanted to eat nothing _but_ meat for the next several weeks.

Raven and Starfire, of course, were avoiding this duty by the simple expedient of being several miles away from the fridge involved, calmly buying shoes at the mall. Well, Starfire was buying shoes. He had never quite figured out what Raven did on these expeditions (always mysteriously planned at the same time the refrigerator was due to be cleaned out), as she came back with a book at the most.

Robin opened the fridge and identified last week's leftover and disturbingly glutinous Tamaranean salad, a mass of what he _thought _might have once been tofu dogs, and - was that a _sock?_

So when he heard a commotion from the hallway, he immediately and thankfully abandoned the fridge and went to investigate.

However, he did not expect to find Beast Boy roughly halfway to the ceiling, arms and legs braced against the wall and hissing down at the vacuum cleaner a laughing Cyborg was brandishing. "What are you doing?" Robin asked, or attempted to ask, but did not get much further than "Wha?" before Beast Boy had somehow moved from sticking tenaciously to the ceiling to sticking tenaciously to Robin's back. "Beast Boy, _let go!_"

The shifter nervously chattered in something that probably wasn't English before a sudden change into a lemur that wrapped its way nervously around Robin's neck, turning into a snake briefly to hiss at Cyborg before shifting to a flying squirrel and darting from Robin's shoulder to glide through the hallway towards the door to the common room. The door to the common room, unfortunately for Beast Boy, was shut. He smacked into it and fell back to the floor in his human form, looking dazed. Robin knelt down beside him and checked his eyes for any signs of concussion. Robin blinked; Beast Boy's pupils actually _were _dilated, which was strange considering the kinds of hits he'd seen the younger Titan take in battle.

"Cyborg," Robin asked slowly, "what's going on?"

"C-catnip," Cyborg managed through his laughter, setting down the vacuum to lean against the wall. "Beast Boy's affected by catnip, heh."

Robin looked back at Beast Boy, who was blinking and looked like he was starting to snap out of it. The changeling raised one hand to his forehead and shook his head slightly, looking very dazed.

"Watch," Cyborg said gleefully. He turned and picked up a small plant from the hallway floor before kneeling on Beast Boy's other side. "Oh, grass stain," Cyborg's grin widened as he waved the catnip just under Beast Boy's nose, "look what I have…"

Robin watched as Beast Boy's eyes snapped fully open. The changeling grabbed suddenly at the catnip and snatched it from Cyborg's grasp, before bringing it to his cheek and rubbing it against his skin, purring softly. Robin blinked. _Well, that's disturbing_.

Beast Boy rolled over, still purring, and Robin felt anger coil in his stomach.

"Cyborg," he grit out, "what the hell do you think you're _doing_?"

Cyborg glanced at him sheepishly. "Uh, entertaining myself?"

Robin rubbed at his forehead, frustrated, and tried to keep his voice level. He didn't think he succeeded. "From now on, entertain yourself in a way that doesn't put anyone else at risk. If the alert were to go off, Beast Boy would be in trouble- he'd be useless in a battle right now, and he'd be in danger if we left him here. He's…" Robin looked at Beast Boy again, noticed his friend's eyes were tracking on nothing _he _could see. "Well, he's high. He can't fight or defend himself in this condition, and if anything were to happen to him it would be your fault." He looked at Cyborg sharply. "Do you understand what I'm saying? He could get killed and _it would be your fault_."

Cyborg swallowed hard and looked at Beast Boy himself. The shifter was eyeing the vacuum again, but what had seemed funny before didn't now. If Beast Boy was out of it enough to be viewing the vacuum as an enemy, what would his battle judgment be like?

Cyborg sighed, picked up the catnip, and handed it to Robin. Then he knelt and picked up Beast Boy and carried him into his room, shutting the door and hoping that would keep him there until the catnip wore off.

Robin was waiting for him in the hallway. "Don't _ever _do that again," the leader warned- before smirking suddenly. "_And _since you were doing something so dangerous- it's now your duty to clean and restock the fridge." The smirk grew wider. "And, since you were putting Beast Boy in danger, you're only going to be getting a minimal amount of meat."

Cyborg groaned.

**Catharsis**

_Continuity: After Season Five_**  
**

Robin sighed and leaned back in his chair, cracking his knuckles over his head as he watched the computer shut down. He closed his eyes a second and noticed how quiet it was with everyone gone. At the circus. His stomach clenched at the thought and he shook his head, standing swiftly and heading for the kitchen.

He didn't even register at first that he'd walked past someone sitting at the table. In fact, he had even made himself toast and started a fresh pot of coffee before a noise behind him alerted him that he wasn't alone in the room. He whirled, one hand automatically dropping to the Birdarangs at his belt as he ran through a quick mental checklist of what enemies might possibly have figured out way to breach the Tower's security.

Or…there could not have been a breach at all. Robin relaxed when he saw Beast Boy at the table, his head pillowed on his arms and his ears back, sound asleep. The Boy Wonder grabbed his toast and sat down across from the sleeping changeling, then frowned. He thought Beast Boy would've jumped at the chance to go to the circus; it seemed like the kind of thing the younger Titan would have enjoyed.

He was halfway through his second piece of toast when Beast Boy stirred slowly, stretching out lithely before sitting up. He yawned hugely and opened his eyes- and froze when he saw Robin across from him. Robin raised an eyebrow, rose and got himself a cup of coffee, then as an afterthought got one for Beast Boy as well before sitting back down. "I thought you went to the circus with the others."

Beast Boy shrugged, eyeing the coffee and sniffing it suspiciously.

"There's no milk in it."

"There better not be," Beast Boy tried to joke, but it fell flat. He looked up at Robin, not touching the coffee. "Why aren't _you _with the others?"

For a long moment Robin said nothing, his hand absently reaching for the R emblazoned on his uniform. Then, abruptly, "I don't like the circus. Bad memories."

The changeling smiled slightly, sadly, and for the first time Robin realized how late it was. He'd been in his workroom for hours. Beast Boy shifted in his seat and finally answered Robin's question. "I don't like the circus either. Bad…well, I don't know what to call'em, since it isn't something I can remember, and anyway Star made sure it was never gonna happen…I think…"

It took Robin a moment to work through that babbled statement. He was referring to Starfire's inadvertent trio into the future, and the stories she had told upon her return. There was always a vague guilt associated with those stories for Robin- _he _had not suffered as the others had, but evidently he had not returned to help them, either. He could not imagine that was out of ignorance, not when they had all remained in Jump City. Starfire had been vague on the details of that trip, but still…

"Let's do something else," Beast Boy said abruptly. Robin glanced up at him again. Beast Boy shrugged. "I'm wide awake now," he said wryly, "and you don't exactly look like you plan on sleeping."

Robin shrugged in turn. "Well, what do you want to do?"

After a pause, Beast Boy suggested, "Video games?"

They both rose and went into the common room. Robin settled himself on the couch as Beast Boy pulled out and discarded various games, finally pulling out Timesplitters 2. The shifter grinned mischievously. "Hey, Rob. Wanna see what the gameplay is like if we set the weapon set to all explosives?"

"Sure." They started off on a team battle, and it took Beast Boy all of five minutes to figure out that his character was immune to attacks from Robin's character. The game swiftly degenerated to Robin throwing a timed mine onto Beast Boy, who then proceeded to run into a group of enemies and dodge them until the explosion occurred, felling everyone around him. Beast Boy had started giggling happily after the second time they did this and was apparently endlessly fascinated by the ensuing explosions.

They barely noticed when the rest of the team came trooping in sometime before dawn, clearly exhausted, while the two of them were very much awake and enjoying themselves.

**Catalyst**

_Continuity: **Before Season One**_**  
**

As much as he hated to admit it, if there was only one thing he had brought away from his time with Batman it would have to be his paranoia. He'd brought rather more than that, obviously, all his training and his identity to name a few, but the paranoia was definitely ranking pretty high up there right now.

When he took his identity as Robin with him, though, he didn't realize it was the _only_ identity he was taking.

It was the second night out of Gotham, looking for a place to stay for the night, that he realized he didn't want to take off his mask once he put it on.

He'd been raised to be wary of the watcher in the shadows, had it reinforced by experience. He could not stop the itching between his shoulder blades that made him walk faster and scan the area with a practiced gaze. Logic said there was no one watching him, not right here, not right now, but logic was battling paranoia instilled at an early age and paranoia was winning.

He stopped just outside of Jump, swung into a tree to sleep on a wide branch for the night, and went through his belongings. He discarded everything that belonged to the ward of Bruce Wayne and kept only what belonged to Batman's sidekick. When he entered Jump City in the morning, he entered it as Robin and only Robin. Paranoia would not allow him to drop back to his 'original' personality, as he'd developed a tendency to think of it, for fear someone would see the switch and it would put not just him but the Batman and Alfred in danger.

He had been two different people almost as far back as he could remember. He was only Robin now.

It felt good.

**Promises**

_Continuity: After Aftershock_

_I promise._

Beast Boy shivered, crossed his arms against his chest and stared out across the dark waters of the bay. He wondered if he'd have made that promise if he had known how seriously he would come to take it.

_I like acting like a kid. It seems like the people who allow themselves to grow up entirely stop enjoying life. _

_Beast Boy, don't ever finish growing up._

_How could I? Grin. It would go against my personality._

_I'm serious. Promise me._

_Okay, okay. I swear I will never finish growing up._

She had sounded so serious about it, as if it meant a lot to her.

_You promise?_

_I promise._

But betrayal and heartache cause a person to age, and it had become hard, so hard to keep that promise. Still. He had not realized until long after she was gone how seriously he himself had taken that promise. He was determined to keep it, to keep some spark of himself young because she had wanted it.

He closed his eyes, spread his wings, and dove out over the city to ride the thermals.

* * *

**Saiyoko: **I made the same promise as Beast Boy did and it took me months to realize how seriously I took it. Part of that was because I've never broken a promise to the person who asked it of me and he's never broken a promise to me. Also, Beast Boy's fascination with the explosion in Timesplitters is taken directly from a night spent at a friend's house when I did much the same thing. I love that game- I'm not even good at it, it's just fun.

...Reviews?


	10. Duck, Duck, Goose

**Disclaimer: **Two updates in less than twenty-four hours. Sweet. One Which Makes the Heart Run Over is still coming along, but it should be up soon. Has anyone else noticed my disclaimers ceased to have anything to do with disclaiming several chapters back?**  
**

**The Beast Boy List: Part II**

**------------------------------------ **

_The point of raking dirt in front of the Tower is to teach you the error of your ways- not to create a zen rock garden._

Beast Boy stood back and grinned at his 'masterpiece.'

_Do not glue magnets to Robin's compass._

"&$! Where ARE we?"

"I do not know, Friend Robin…but the others may be worried at how long we spend on each patrol…"

_Or to Cyborg._

"WAFFLES!"

_Voices in your head do not constitute lawful orders._

"…_why _did you build Lego furniture in the common room? _Life size_ Lego furniture? For that matter, where did you even _get_ that many Legos?"

"I listened to the voice that yelled the loudest…"

_Do not attempt to communicate with honorary Titans using only Madonna lyrics._

"Where were you yesterday?"

"Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry…"

"…what?"

_Never tell Starfire "There's not enough room to fly under __that!", unless you want her to try._

"What happened?"

"She tried to fly in the bathroom window."

"…It's two feet square…and it doesn't open…"

"I know."

_Do not put decaf in the Robin's coffee pot._

"Robin?"

"Unnnnggggh."

"Raven! I fear Robin has become a zombie!"

_Knocking down targets with snowballs on the training course is not helping._

"Beast Boy, when I said no snowball fights, it applied to _all_ of your forms. Shift back _now_."

_Do not respond to Robin's requests by clicking heels together & saying "Yes, My Colonel!"_

Raven glanced around at the giggling civilians and commented dryly, "You may have just lost some respect."

_Stop swearing in foreign languages...That includes Klingon._

"Kuso!"

"When you've used it in the same context twelve times in an hour, we have a pretty good idea of what it means."

_Stop making up new languages._

"Fealzabajibit!"

"…"

"…"

"…everyone in favor of pretending we didn't hear that?"

"…Yes."

_You are not allowed to build a fort of Cyborg's spare parts. He does not appreciate the joke._

"Beast Boy, what are you…is that my arm?!"

_Don't release crickets in Robin's workroom._

"Beast Boy, that had better not be you chirping."

_Especially one at a time, over a period of weeks._

There was a lot of "unexplained" damage to Robin's carpet.

_Same for adjusting desk height 1/4 of an inch daily for 3 weeks._

And his knees.

_You're not a lumberjack & you're not ok...So stop singing that stupid song._

"Yes, the girls are allowed to sing it. Why? Because they _won't._"

_You are not the "Generalissimo of Rudesylvania"._

_...Even if you have business cards that say so._

"Where do you even _get_ these things?"

_You shouldn't page visiting Titans to parts of the Tower that don't exist._

"We don't _have_ a pool. We live on an island…"

_Quaker Oats containers are not for shrine building._

"Does anyone in the Tower even eat this stuff?"

_Neither are empty Mountain Dew cans._

"BB, you're not allowed to drink anything with that much caffeine in it."

_Or full ones._

"That didn't mean they're to play with…"

_The power of Christ does not compel you._

"Do I look like an exorcist to you?"

"…"

"…Uh, Beast Boy? When the light bulb starts glowing black, it's time to run…"

_Can't slap teammates with my glove and challenge them to a duel._

"I accept! Pistols at dawn!…Well, pistols for you, I've got these nifty built-in cannons that I can use."

"Never mind!"

_Covering your ears and running through the Tower screeching like a banshee is not a productive use of your time._

"What's he doing?"

"Volunteering for dishwashing duty. For the year."

_No leaning on the roof railing and yelling "Im King of the World!"_

"We're not the Titanic, Beast Boy."

Beast Boy struck a melodramatic pose. "Tell me you'll never let go!"

Raven rolled her eyes and shoved him off the roof. An osprey glared at her indignantly a moment later.

_Throwing pencils and trying to get them stuck in the ceiling tiles is frowned upon._

"Thirty points!"

"Fifty for me, I got three in a row!"

"Cyborg, will you stop encouraging him!"

_There is no point to threatening the rest of the team with "I know where you live!"_

"The room next to yours. I suggest you keep in mind that not only do I know where you live as well,_ I_ can phase through the adjoining wall."

_Not allowed to ask to go home early._

"You _live_ here."

_Whipped cream cannisters are for garnishing drinks, not waging war on your teammates._

Cyborg leaned over and whispered, "That held dairy products." Beast Boy dropped it in distaste.

_Making up your own dialogue to any movie playing with no volume is forbidden._

"I'm King of the World!"

"Beast Boy, you're watching Mulan."

_Clothing does not belong in the dishwasher._

"_Why _are there always socks in the kitchen?"

_Stop crossing out names in the phonebook while reading the obits. It creeps out Starfire._

"Jackson, Bertha…Johannesman, Greg…Johnson, Alan…"

"You get stranger by the day, grass stain."

_You are not going to one day conquer the world with an army of river dancers. Stop telling small children that._

"No one would shoot, because they'd all be like 'ooh, dancers!' and then it'd be too late!"

"Did your intelligence decrease in the last five minutes?"

_There is no reason to wake Raven at 3 am and attempt to teach her Norwegian._

"En, to, tre, fire, fem, seks…

"…?"

_Especially as you don't know Norwegian._

"Counting to six does not constitute a language. How did you get in here? And when will you get out?" Raven's door lit with black energy. "Now would be a good time."

_The proper way to play "Duck, Duck, Goose" does not involve slapping yourself across the face and giggling._

The team was sitting around the common room in various stages of unconsciousness. They'd just gotten back from dealing with Cinderblock and it was the time of night that's not late enough to be called morning but is late enough that going to sleep would be pointless. Beast Boy was wandering around the room dazedly. No one really had the energy to stop him when he started wandering in an erratic circle around the rest of the team and mumbling, "Duck, duck, duck, duck…"

They did, however, look askance at him when he pointed to himself, shouted "Goose!" then slapped himself _hard_ across the face before sinking to the ground and giggling.

"And _that_," Robin announced from his sprawl on the floor, "is why sleep deprivation is bad."

_When injured, staring bemusedly at injury and making announcements such as "Wow, I've never seen the inside of my hand before"_ really_ creeps out Starfire._

"Whoa, I can see the muscles working!"

"I think we need to get to you to the med bay…"

_"Leave us a note when you're going out" does not mean the note can say whatever you want. "Gone to Jamaica, back by spring" is not a valid note._

"Where's Beast Boy?"

"According to this? In Cuba until the price of licorice decreases."

_Please stop trying to rearrange the evidence room to comply with Feng Shui._

"Robin's gonna have a _fit_ when he sees this…"

_You are not allowed to have "sing-offs" with Cyborg._

"Jeremiah was a bullfrog, he was a good friend of mine-!"

"Can I play with madneeeess!"

"You both sound stark raving mad to me…"

_Now are you allowed to compete as to who knows the most annoying songs._

"Every rose has its thorn, every cowboy sings a sad sad song…."

"Lord, won't you buy me, a Mereceeeeedes Benz!"

"That doesn't count, you're not allowed to sing that song in tune!"

_Please stop singing "Drunken Sailor" in the T-sub._

"What do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, what do you do with a drunken sailor, ear-lye in the mor-ning! Wey-hey and up she rises, wey-hey and up she rises, wey-hey and up she rises, ear-lye in the mor-ning!"

"In five minutes I'm gonna show you what to do with an annoying changeling…"

_There are no save points in the Tower. Go to sleep already._

"Beast Boy, shut off the game and go to sleep. You've been up for three days straight, and you've been playing that same game for half of that time."

"All right."

"Um, where are you going?"

"To the stairwell. To save."

"…There's no save point in our stairwell. Go to bed."

_You are not allowed to switch the "n" and "m" keys on the keyboards._

"How long do you think it'll take him to notice?"

"It's _Robin_. Not long."

"BEAST BOY!"

"Told ya."

_Nor are you allowed to install "any" keys._

"…Please, friend, why has the 'alt' key been replaced with a bright 'any' key? Is this what I am to press when the error message arrives?"

_Please do not add hot sauce to the ketchup. Starfire does not notice the difference. The rest of us do._

"This meal is delightful!"

"…_Water_…"

_Under no circumstances should you be uttering the phrase "one, two, three, four, I declare a prank war!"_

"Five, six, seven, eight, I'm gonna win cuz Cyborg's great!"

"So long as you keep it between the two of you, I'm past caring."

"C'mon, Rae! Don't you wanna join in?"

"No."

* * *

Additional: 

You are not Tarzan. Stop imitating him.

You're not Jane either.

When Cyborg dared you to eat that raw onion, he was joking.

Not allowed to reenact World War II by yourself when bored.

Not allowed to randomly booby-trap doors throughout the Tower.

It is not necessary to prove that a pencil is, in fact, a weapon.

Playing "how can this be used as a weapon?", I.E. pointing at a random object such as a shoebox and suggesting its potential as a weapon, is not recommended around civilians.

Catch should not be played with random objects.

Stop ordering pizza. We're on an island.

It is not advisable to attempt to teach yourself to play the harmonica at three am.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **I don't understand why decaf coffee exists. Explanations of inspiration follow. 

When you swear at someone in a foreign language first make sure they don't know that language- I got chased around a yard once, didn't realize Cy knew_ exactly _what I'd just called him. I still build forts out of whatever's handy when I get bored.

My twin brother has a shrine of empty Mountain Dew cans on his desk next to his computer; it's an impressive size. He also regularly challenges other members of the family to duels. I regularly inform him that I know where he lives- this was when we lived in the same house and our bedrooms shared a wall. Muting movies/Tv shows and making up dialogue is a family pastime.

The army of river dancers, the lessons in Norwegian, the Duck Duck Goose game, the reenacting a war by oneself, and the "never seen the inside of my hand before" are _also _based directly on things my twin did. So was eating a raw onion- we never did figure that one out. I'm still curious as to why my mother dared him to eat a raw onion in the first place.

The "leave us a note" thing- that is the reason my parents quit asking for notes. Most of ours involved Jamaica somehow. Scarily enough, my mother could actually deduce where we were and when we'd be home from some of them. I play a sing-off/annoying songs game with my twin all the time. Someday we'll actually figure out what the rules are. We're also fond of the weaponry game and I did in fact give him an "any" key as a borthday gift one year, which he promptly installed.

I stayed up three or four nights straight in middle school playing Final Fantasy VII. I was convinced for most of the next day that there was a save point in the school stairwell and I could just hit reset if I screwed up. Wheee, the joys of sleep deprivation.

* * *

Also, I now have a FictionPress account, also under GuardianSaiyoko. It's pretty empty right now, but feel free to go have a look. 

...Reviews?


	11. Home for the Holidays

**Disclaimer:** Holiday chapter...kinda. The first shot is for anyone who ever left home and put down roots somewhere else and then found that 'home' wasn't...quite like they remembered. The last is for people for whom it's _just_ like they remembered. The middle is the product of my sleep-deprived mind. Return of the numbering system...now that I remembered I was using it. Damn.

* * *

**Whitewater**

**001.3. Home for the Holidays**

_Continuity: After Season Five _

Raven's voice was annoyed as she stepped over the sprawled changeling. "We've got no reason to be here, you know that."

Beast Boy didn't open his eyes, just stretched as he replied. "I don't think anyone's going to object to the Titans coming to visit an old apartment. The landlord didn't."

"An old, empty apartment," Raven muttered. She glanced around. They hadn't been back here in ages, and yet it didn't look any different than the day they'd moved out. It did look strange, without any furniture. She said as much out loud.

"Hey, the floor's more comfortable than your old couch."

"You mean the one in Titan's Tower's common room? The one you still sleep on occasionally?"

Beast Boy rolled fluidly to his feet and scratched the back of his head. "Uh, yeah."

Raven moved further into the apartment. The bedroom door was wide open, and it looked strange that way. In the entire time the two of them had shared the apartment that door had never been open longer than it took her to walk through it. Sometimes, she'd just walked literally _through _it.

"…I still can't believe no one else has moved in, after all this time." Raven almost jumped. He'd followed her into the bedroom. Something about being back here had made her believe he'd still stay out of 'her' room.

Turning around, she saw that he was actually hovering just on the other side of the open door. She nodded to let him know he could come in and he did so. "I'm surprised as well. It isn't the _best_ apartment, but it's hardly a bad one."

Beast Boy sighed and slid down with his back to the wall. He pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on his knees. "Remember that first Christmas here?"

"How could I not know? Cyborg won't let me forget."

"Jeez, you forget one holiday and you never hear the end of it." Raven glanced over at him. He sounded sleepy,

Sure enough, his head had sunk down further and his eyes were sliding shut. She'd noticed that he slept a lot more in winter. Recently, with the days as short as they were, he seemed tired all the time.

"Well," she replied, sitting down next to him, "we _did_ forget Christmas. That's pretty noticeable."

"Mmm." Yes, he was definitely falling asleep. Raven sighed and leaned back against the wall. She considered for a moment, then got to her feet again and walked back out to the main room. Beast Boy barely noticed.

She flipped open her communicator. "Robin?"

The screen crackled to life instantly. "Raven? What is it?" Robin frowned. "Is there trouble?"

"No, there's no trouble." Raven glanced back through the door. Beast Boy had slid over onto his side and curled up. "Beast Boy's fallen asleep. Is it all right if we stay the night here?"

The screen wavered and crackled. "We'll be okay without you here for the night. Beast Boy's been looking kind of sick lately; he probably needs the sleep. Have you cleared things with the landlord?"

Raven shook her head slightly and decided against asking how Robin defined 'kind of sick.' "I haven't, but he was happy enough about us visiting that I don't think he'll mind. Says he's likely to have more possible tenants showing up if they know we lived here."

"Are you sure you want that to be public knowledge?" Robin sounded worried. "You didn't even tell the other Titans where you two lived before."

"We didn't tell you, either," Raven pointed out flatly. Robin had ferreted out that information on his own. "And…we don't live here now, and haven't in a while. I don't think it will hurt."

"All right." Finally, Robin smiled wryly. "Just remember to be back here tomorrow, or Cyborg'll have a fit- and have another year to never let you hear the end of."

Raven smiled, very slightly. "We'll be back- we know the date this year."

"Okay, then." The screen went black. Raven flipped the communicator shut and looked around thoughtfully.

She made a quick trip to the office to let the landlord know they'd be staying the night; he had no problem with it. Then she let herself back in the apartment and checked that Beast Boy was where she'd left him. He was, and sound asleep.

Raven went to the main room and got the fire going. The shape shifter got cold very easily and the heat to this apartment wasn't on. Then she went back and sat down beside him, at an angle so she could still watch the fire through the open door by opening her eyes, and settled into a meditative trance.

It was dark outside when he finally stirred. He curled in on himself and shivered, once, then stretched out and opened his eyes. He sighed deeply and then blinked. "Wha…" A yawn interrupted his words. "What time is it?"

Raven lowered herself gently to the floor and opened her eyes in time to see him yank his feet out from under where she was about to sit. So he'd sprawled out more. "About eight in the evening. You fell asleep," she added unnecessarily.

Eyes widening, Beast Boy rocketed to his feet. "Eight! Robin's gonna-"

"Do nothing," Raven interrupted him, standing and striding into the other room where the fire crackled merrily. "I let him know we'll be staying the night."

Beast Boy raised an eyebrow as he followed her out into "his" room. "We will?"

Raven waved him to a spot by the fire. "I told him you fell asleep. He noticed you've been sick and didn't object very much."

"I haven't been-!" Raven's _look _cut him off. "Okay, maybe I've been feeling a little down, but- we're staying here? For the whole night?"

"If I recall correctly, you were willing to stay here a lot longer than that once before when you were ill."

"Yeah, but…" Beast Boy's shoulders slumped and he sighed as he gave up the argument. He sat down next to Raven and stared into the flames with her. She automatically opened her cloak and let him duck under it, snuggling in beside her. Long ago she would _never_ have allowed such a thing but then they'd chased the Brotherhood of Evil all over the world, and well…Staying warm tended to take priority. He was more susceptible to cold than she was and his shifting didn't allow much warmer clothing, nor was it practical to keep shifting to furry forms each night. Although, admittedly, he had shifted into a cat as often as possible and curled up inside her cloak.

They were both silent for a long time, glancing around the apartment. He'd opened the window blinds when they first arrived but it was dark outside now and the only light came from the crackling fire.

The small, one bedroom apartment looked much different to him now. For a short while, it had been _home_. As close to home as he'd felt in the intervening months between the Doom Patrol and the Teen Titans. It had been somewhere to come back to at the end of the day, and a place where he knew someone was waiting for him and would even come looking for him if he _didn't_ come back at the end of the day. No one really noticed if a squirrel didn't come home. Green or not.

It was strange to see the place so empty. The firelight cast their shadows out behind them onto the wall. Beast Boy sighed again and shut his eyes, unthinkingly leaning against Raven. For all the sleep he'd gotten he was still tired- Robin was right, he was ill. "Hey," he said quietly, not opening his eyes, watching the light play over the closed lids. It had a greenish cast to it. "I never thanked you."

She shifted slightly and he moved with her. "For what?" She was watching the way the firelight played hide-and-seek in the folds of her cloak, bringing different shades of color to it. There was an absent tone to her voice.

"For letting me stay here."

She glanced at him, careful not to dislodge him from where he was so comfortably settled against her. Hs ears flicked and a moment later, she, too, heard the distant thunder. "You were just sleeping on my couch," she said uncomfortably. "It isn't like it was anyplace special."

"It was someplace warm and dry," he countered wryly. "After several months of living outside, that was more than enough."

They lapsed into silence again. After a while, Raven recalled what she'd always wanted to ask him. "I always wondered- why did you leave the Doom Patrol?"

"Oh." His ears flicked again, this time in discomfort. His head was resting on her shoulder and the sensation felt odd against her bare skin. "It was…I had a fight with Mento. He…didn't think I was taking being a hero seriously enough. Believe it or not, I left with this absurd idea I was going to go find Robin." He chuckled slightly, then trailed off, and after a long moment raised his hands and stripped off his gloves. He flexed his claws, then glanced up at her. "Does this bother you?"

Raven raised her eyebrows. "No. Why, should it?"

Beast Boy shrugged and replaced his gloves. "It bothered Mento."

In reply, Raven wrapped her arm around his shoulders, knowing that from her the gesture would mean more than any words she could have said. He leaned into her embrace with a deep sigh as his eyes slid shut again, thinking he'd be perfectly happy to sleep right where he was.

"Hey, Beast Boy?"

"Mmm." Yes, he was definitely falling asleep again. Well, he felt safe and warm and content here, wrapped in her cloak with her arm around him.

"Merry Christmas."

"Not til tomorrow," he grumbled. "Cy's not getting' another excuse to mock me for a year." He curled his legs up under him and felt Raven shift to lean some of her weight against him. He smiled with his eyes closed.

Here, this empty apartment, this wasn't home. Here, huddled with his friend in front of a fire and settling in comfortably for the night…_This _was home.

* * *

**048. Happy Hallowe'en**

_Continuity: Any Hallowe'en_

"Beast Boy?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

Beast Boy sprang over the back of the couch and slid down to sit next to Robin, cheerfully emptying his pillowcase full of goodies onto the table. "As of right now? Counting my loot."

Raven, who had been reading at the other side of the couch until Beast Boy flopped down in the middle and disturbed her concentration, raised an eyebrow. "And how exactly did you get this much…loot?"

Beast Boy glanced up at her and grinned widely. "I won a contest for the best costume- judge said he'd never seen anyone else pull off a Titan so convincingly."

* * *

**049. Christmas Morning**

_Continuity: After _Home for the Holidays _short_

Starfire hovered above the edge of the couch, grinning happily. Beast Boy was mock-wrestling at the foot of the couch with the giant stuffed snake Raven had given him and abruptly let out a very badly staged wail. "Raven! Raven, help, it's got me! RAE IT'S GONNA EAT ME!" He looked ridiculous, staring up at Raven with a pleading expression, a snake wrapped around his upper body, and bits of wrapping paper stuck in his hair.

Raven, sitting on the couch, absently reached down and smacked him with the book Robin had given her. He whined and she rolled her eyes briefly before pelting him with her stuffed raven from Starfire. He yelped as the beak hit him in the head and glared indignantly up at her.

Robin was trying to talk Cyborg into playing chess on his new chess set. Cyborg was trying to sneak off to the garage to work on the T-car with his gifts, but he was getting more and more desperate and less and less subtle. Starfire clutched the oversized stuffed tiger Robin had given her- somehow they'd all gotten on the same wavelength about stuffed animals this year, though Cyborg did not seem to appreciate his teddy bear from Beast Boy.

Of course, the fact that Beast Boy had dressed it in a tutu probably didn't help.

Starfire looked at Robin again, gaze lingering on the stuffed robin she'd given him that he was clutching without seeming to think of it. She felt her smile grow. 

Wrapping paper was scattered all over the common room, mostly bright colors and fun patterns, here and there the solid dark blue Raven had used to wrap gifts. A Chinese checkers game sat forgotten on the coffee table, half-completed from Beast Boy begging Raven to play. There was a long strand of ribbon strewn about the room that Cyborg had used to jokingly try and tie Beast Boy up until he calmed down enough to wait his turn unwrapping gifts. Their tree had birdarangs and broken pieces of communicator hanging from it due to some bet between the three boys. A plate of cookies teetered precariously on the arm of the couch- Robin had made most of them, being the best cook, but the ones with coconut in them were hers. Clumps of mistletoe made passing into the kitchen downright dangerous. Cyborg had left a tape player on somewhere that was now playing merrily through "Santa, Baby," and Beast Boy looked to be considering karaoke. 

Starfire closed her eyes and whispered happily, "Merry Christmas."

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** Please nobody ask me how Raven lit the fire. My only experience is with campfires; I'm not familiar with fireplaces. If claws bothering Mento surprises you...well, I've got family praying for my soul on the basis of a nervous disorder. The power of Christ compels you!...or, y'know, not. I'm in trouble if they ever figure out I'm pagan. 


	12. I Do Believe In Fairies

**Disclaimer: **Bangerang! Or, it's four am and I've been up for a very long time. Do enjoy.

**Whitewater**

**050. Dare**

(Based on a true story.)

_Continuity: Anytime_

_Playing truth or dare is not terribly fun. Watching the drunk kids down the street play truth or dare is fun._

During certain times of the year Robin set extra patrols around the city. Those times of year included New Years, the weekend of the Super Bowl, the entire month of October, and late at night on the Fourth of July, after their own celebrations. Naturally, Starfire and Robin were patrolling together. At the nearest festival.

This was how Cyborg came to be sitting on a curb at the dead of night, watching as Raven and Beast Boy steered another car back into the correct lane before coming back to sit beside him again. He could hear them arguing as they came in to land.

"No Beast Boy, we are _not_ playing truth-or-dare."

The flying squirrel on her shoulder chattered at her. "Because it's a waste of time."

Cyborg wondered, amused, how Raven had gotten so good at interpreting Beast Boy's comments when he wasn't actually speaking.

Raven touched down next to him and Beast Boy leapt from her shoulder, changing into human as he hit the ground. "But Raven-"

Cyborg interrupted him quickly. "Drunk, or playing games?"

"Playing that stupid game," Raven replied, assuming a lotus position. Recently a game had become popular with the teenagers in Jump City where they waited until late at night and drove in the wrong lane as long as they could without having to swerve out of the path of an incoming car. Before they'd figured out what was going on, there had been a huge upswing in traffic accidents, and tonight was even worse because people were drinking as well.

"You might not want to do anything that involves closing your eyes just yet, Rae." Cyborg sounded cheerful enough that Raven opened her eyes again.

"And, why is that?"

Cyborg nodded down the street at a group of celebrants. "_You_ may not want to play truth-or-dare, but _they _certainly seem to be having fun."

Shortly after he said that, a teenaged boy went running down the street in his boxers holding a fake torch full of sparklers singing "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy!" There was a shocked silence from all three Titans for a moment.

Beast Boy broke it by asking wistfully, "Are you _sure _you don't wanna play, Raven?"

* * *

**051. Caroling **

_Continuity: Anytime_

Cyborg raised an eyebrow when he saw Raven waiting for them, hovering in front of the Tower's door. "Blackmail?"

"Blackmail," she replied. "You?"

"…Blackmail."

"And Starfire?"

Cyborg shrugged as Raven settled lightly to the ground. "I think she just wanted to go caroling."

Raven sighed, but then Beast Boy and Starfire caught up to them, a wicked gleam in the changeling's eyes.

"Ready?" he asked his assembled…ah… "recruits." He was met with three nods, one wary, one delighted, one resigned. Beast Boy grinned widely and rang the doorbell. Robin answered after a long moment, raising an eyebrow at his team standing on their own doorstep. Before he could comment, the four Titans outside broke into song.

"Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg-"

The door slammed shut.

Robin was the only one to sleep inside that night. The rest slept on the roof.

* * *

**052. I do believe in fairies**

_Continuity: I've no idea. If you figure it out, do let me know?_

"I cannot believe we're doing this."

Beast Boy leaned back and grinned up at her. He was seated at her feet on a dark energy disc, claiming his arms were tired. "Why not? Robin gave us all time to relax."

"…I _really _don't think this is what he meant."

"You're off course," Beast Boy pointed out cheerfully. "Second star to the right, Rae! And straight on til morning!"

"Beast Boy, he's not _real_. You do know that, right?"

Beast Boy crossed his arms and….well, pouted. There was just no other word for it. It was ador-infuriating. It was infuriating.

"But Peter Pan _is_ real, Rae-ven!"

"_No_, he's not."

"Is too."

"Is not."

"Is too."

"Is- I am not _having _this discussion!"

They were silent.

For about five minutes.

Then Beast Boy said sulkily, "But he _is _real, Raven."

"…I'm not doing this again."

"He _is_! I can't explain it, and I don't know _how _he's real, but he _is_! I know it like I know that fire burns and meat is bad!"

"Meat's only bad to you. Cyborg loves it."

"That's not the point!"

Raven sighed. Dawn was streaking the sky in hues of gold and red. "_Peter Pan is not real._ Got it?"

Beast Boy hunched up against her legs, drawing his knees to his chest and hugging his legs. Despondently, he said, "He _is._ He's real. He's real in those moments when you just want to run and play, when you're between awake and asleep, when you're surrounded by friends and you're doing something childish like…like…like having a food fight, or something. Or building a fort out of boxes. Yeah. Me an' Star still do that sometimes. She'd believe in him, I know it."

"Starfire also believes in the Tooth Fairy."

"That's _different_. Peter Pan is-" Beast Boy was struggling to put his thoughts into words when Raven interrupted his thoughts.

"It's morning, Beast Boy, and we are a long way above the middle of the ocean with no land in-"

"An island!"

"-what?"

Beast Boy stood up suddenly, ignoring the way he sent them rocking about the sky, and pointed. "An island, right there!"

Raven blinked. There really was an island. Sighing again, she set them down gently just as the day dawned fully. Beast Boy was grinning bright enough to bring about the dawn all by himself. "See, Rae? There _is_ an island."

"It isn't Neverland. It's just an island."

"But Raven," and the changeling turned and took a step towards the woods at the edge of the beach, "any island can be Neverland. And anyone can be Peter Pan. Neverland doesn't even have to be a real island, it's the island in your head... Don't you get it?"

"No, Beast Boy, I really don't."

The grin grew wider. "Then I guess I'll have to show you."

And he turned and raced deeper into the island.

After a moment Raven followed him.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **I had to. I really did. I was raised on Peter Pan. We watched different versions, we read the book, we watched Hook, we played Lost Boys, we dressed up as the characters at Hallowe'en, my mother used to refract light from her watch when we were little and tell us to go catch Tinkerbell. And we tried. I've dressed up as Peter and a friend dressed up as Hook and we staged their last fight in the middle of my English classroom. I could keep going but I have to go watch Finding Neverland now. Peter is real, by the way. So's the Neverland. You can find them both if you know how to look. 

ShinobiCyrus has a new story up in the style of Whitewater, called Five Stories. If you've a moment go check it out.

...Reviews?


	13. Teammates

**Disclaimer:** So I'm back home for the holidays and ...not sleeping. Seems sleep keeps being prevented somehow. I'm also a lot busier than I thought I'd be, so I'll update as much as possible but it'll be sporadic. Er, more sporadic.

* * *

**053. Teammates**

_Continuity: End of_ Spellbound

Beast Boy stood in shock for a moment, then gently pushed Raven away and opened his mouth to speak, not quite sure what he was going to say but feeling that he had to say _something_.

…Well, that and he wanted room to run if any dark energy flared up. Raven wasn't one for hugs and as much as he'd enjoyed it, _now_ he was worried.

Cyborg ruined his chance at coming up with a perfect comment, however, with a mass of smelly laundry and an overzealous shout. "Whoo-hoo! Stankball!"

Beast Boy groaned and sat up. A moment later he looked up and saw Raven staring at the stankball with an unreadable expression.

Then she smirked.

"Now hold on, Raven, don't-" Beast Boy started giggling as Raven loosed the laundry right at Cyborg's head, fueled by dark energy. Cyborg tried to dart away down the corridor only to have it home in on him, smack into the small of his back, and send him sprawling. He rolled over onto his back and picked up the ball from where it had fallen beside him, shaking his free fist at them. "Hey! No teaming up on me!"

Still on the floor, Beast Boy exchanged glances with Raven. At her slight nod he grinned and rolled, shifting into a hummingbird as he did so and dodging the ball Cyborg threw back. Raven threw out a hand, encased it in dark energy, and threw it back down the hall- Beast Boy became a hawk and caught it in his talons and zoomed for Cyborg.

Cyborg turned and ran down the corridor with Beast Boy winging after him and Raven following behind him. Somehow, he didn't think he was going to win this game.

* * *

**054. Gifts**

_Continuity: Any birthday/Christmas_

"...We could get him a coffeemaker."

Cyborg stared at her, tried to speak, failed, and tried again. "What is _wrong_ with you? First of all, I'm pretty sure he just steals Robin's coffee, and second, _what is wrong with you?!_"

Beneath her hood, Raven smirked. "You asked me what I thought he'd _like_, not what I thought we should _get _him."

Cyborg groaned.

* * *

**055. Seagulls**

_Continuity: Between Season Four and Season Five_

_"__Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.__"_

_-__Ashley Smith _

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself." Beast Boy didn't move from where he was sprawled against a rock, watching seagulls whirl and dip in the sky. Robin slid down a boulder to sit beside him.

It wasn't so much that he had apologized, as that they had learned to work around it. Robin hadn't been able to bring himself to apologize because he still wasn't sure he was wrong. Beast Boy still resented him for it and he knew it. He _had_ to say something or the dynamics of the team would never be repaired. They might already be past repair.

"Beast Boy, I-"

But Beast Boy waved him to silence and continued watching the seagulls.

After a long, awkward moment Robin wrapped his arms around his knees, tilted his head back, and directed his own gaze to the sky. He watched the seagull's flight in silence as the sun began slowly sinking below the horizon. He found his eyes drawn after the seagulls and his mind marveling at how easily they flew, rose and dove on currents of the air that were unfamiliar to him but that he knew that Beast Boy knew intimately. It had been a long time since he'd been fascinated with flight, what with having three roommates gifted with that ability, but it was still amazing when he stopped to consider it. Especially if he happened to think about planes. He'd been told humans weren't meant to fly because they didn't have wings...but humans had built wings, huge metal wings, and those could carry them into the sky.

The sun had been down a while, and Robin was deep into his reverie which had somehow moved on to admiring the way the waves lapped at the island as the result of the moon's pull, when Beast Boy finally turned to him. "So," his teammate said. "We good?"

Robin paused. They'd discussed nothing, but he thought he understood. Neither one of them agreed with the other about this, and never would. But...there were more important things. Like Starfire, and Raven, and the team and the city.There were more interesting things, amazing things, seagulls and waves and the moon's pull. This was...not a forgiveness, but an understanding.

"...We're good."

* * *

**056. Makeshift**

_Continuity: During Season Five_

Beast Boy flopped face-down into a snowdrift with a groan, then rolled to his back and looked up at Cyborg and Robin pleadingly. "C'mon guys, it's late and it's dark and it's cold and..."

"...And it's Christmas."

Beast Boy blinked at Cyborg, momentarily startled. "Yeah, and?" He flung his arms out to indicate the snowy tree-covered slope. "Middle of the wilderness, Cy! No presents, no tree, no Star's cooking or Raven's tea!" Not that he ate Star's cooking or drank Raven's tea, but...He was dangerously close to tears and he knew it.

Robin, who had remained silent, walked slowly past him as Beast Boy looked away and blinked furiously.

"...Cyborg."

Cyborg shifted his gaze from his shivering friend to Robin.

"Give me a hand?"

Raising an eyebrow, Cyborg walked past Beast Boy as well.

Some time later, he was never quite sure how long, Beast Boy calmed down enough that he scrambled up to see what the other two were up to. He stumbled and fell and scrambled up again- his body was strongly protesting the cold. But he did get up, and he did see what they had been doing, and he blinked in astonishment.

Birdarangs and what seemed to be spare circuits decorated a scrawny pine tree, a few of the circuits blinking intermittently. Robin had produced an old communicator with a cracked screen from somewhere and handed it to Cyborg to place on top of the tree. Then he saw that Beast Boy was up, stepped towards him, shrugged and spread his hands.

"It's something," he said simply.

"It's enough," Beast Boy replied, and went to start a fire. Cyborg came to help and to tell him they'd call the girls on the communicator and celebrate. Through screens, yes, but they'd still celebrate.

And hopefully, they'd all be home soon, and they could have as many celebrations as they felt like.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** Beast Boy and Raven teaming up for Stankball is a scary, scary thought. Somebody was crazy enough to give me a coffeemaker, but a conversation similar to the one in Gifts did occur. Saiyoko+caffeine bad idea. Seagulls...well, in at least part of Season Five Beast Boy and Robin are wandering around without the others, and so I assume they came to _some_ kind of understanding. I don't know if I got across what I was trying to say, but it's kind of what happened to a couple of my friendships. 

And the reference to the birdarangs on the tree and the girls not knowing why a while back? That's why.


	14. Red Cars Go Faster

**Disclaimer:** So, second day of classes and I've played Legos with a kitty skeleton twice, been regaled with the story of how my Micro professor wanders through her home naked after tossing her lab coat in the wash (so the dog doesn't get sick), and been informed that wearing gloves while using crystal violet reagent means you are a wuss. Unless you're a waitress, then it's okay.

What in the _hell_ do the rest of you do at class, anyway?

** Whitewater**

**Red Cars Go Faster  
**

* * *

**057. Sanity is a Relative Thing**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Sometimes he was concerned for his sanity. Sometimes he reached for an itch that wasn't there, or glanced at his arm where there had been a distinct scar for many years, or woke in the night gritting his teeth in pain from a limb that didn't exist anymore.

Sometimes he thought he was crazy, because shadows sent him whirling and reaching for his Bo staff, even at night, and he can't remember when he started sleeping with weapons at hand- whether he was still with the Dark Knight, or later, when another wanted him for an apprentice.

Sometimes she worries, worries that they'll decide she isn't worth the effort, that they'll want someone else who absorbs their culture with more ease…someone like her sister…And at the same time, her hope that they will always be there, always stay the family they've become, burns so bright it blinds.

Sometimes, especially when he lays awake at night staring at the moon and fighting warring instincts, he wonders if they won't just take over one day- and if he won't just take off if they do. If he won't become a hawk, or a wolf, or one of the other million options that run through his mind each fight, and just run for the wilderness.

Raven was the worst off, because humming at the back of her mind were her friend's deepest insecurities, dark obsession, wild current, frightened hope, uncertain regret. And as much as it disturbs her rest and meditation, she finds their feelings hovering at the back of her mind very, very comforting.

* * *

**058. The Red Cars Go Faster**

_Continuity: After Season Five _

"The red cars go faster."

"Oh for…No, the red cars do _not _go faster."

"Well the cops certainly seem to think they do!"

Cyborg grinned to himself, walking along with his hands crossed behind his head as his friends flew along above him, looping back occasionally so they didn't get too far ahead. This was by _far _ the most entertaining part of the patrol; the arguments those two thought up were always interesting. Though he was a little confused by the repeated references to a Spackle party, and the repetition of the words "bumper cars" that seemed to be a game…

"Fine! Believe what you want!"

"I wanna hear you _say _it, Rae-Rae!"

"Red cars go faster. Never cal me that again, unless you want a pole shoved so far up your -"

"Ahem!" Cyborg cleared his throat and nodded meaningfully at some nearby civilians, who had stopped to listen to the argument. Raven sighed and settled for an angry glare. Beast Boy grinned sheepishly and leapt from her energy disc, shifting into a hummingbird to dart around her annoyingly.

He definitely enjoyed patrolling with these two more than with Robin and Starfire. Now if he could just keep them from noticing he kept _asking _Robin to split patrols this way…

* * *

**001.4. Moving Day **

_Continuity:__ Beginning of Season Five_**  
**

Raven rubbed her hand against her forehead and gazed around the apartment. Most of her stuff was in boxes already, and her gaze stalled at the sight of the green shape shifter sleeping with his legs on the couch cushions, back against the bottom of the couch, and head and shoulders on the floor. One ear was standing straight up and flicking occasionally as he snored. He looked peaceful and relaxed.

Raven picked up a pillow, hefted it thoughtfully, and threw it at him.

Beast Boy spluttered and fell in a tumble of limbs as the pillow it him in the head. After a moment he extricated his head and glared sleepily at her. "Wazzat for!"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Moving day. Truck's waiting outside."

He sat up with a yawn, stretching in a way reminiscent of a cat, and almost didn't catch the cup she levitated at him. He did, and sniffed at it, and then both ears shot straight up and he guzzled it eagerly. "Coffee!" he…well, squeaked. Yes, that was definitely a squeak.

Ten minutes later, with the radio blasting and Beast Boy singing along loudly as she levitated boxes and furniture while he cleaned, she was regretting the coffee.

"Til the day I die, I promise I won't change! So ya better give up! I don't wanna be told to grow up, and I don't wanna change, I just wanna have fun- I don't wanna be told to grow up…"

That, Raven thought dryly, was probably the song best suited to Beast Boy. She levitated the last piece of furniture (the couch) into the rented truck and turned to help him with the cleaning.

The windows were washed, and the apartment was now empty; he'd already cleaned the stove and the fridge. That left vacuuming, and spackling over the few holes in the walls where posters or paintings had hung.

Raven sat down against the wall with a sigh and turned on the vacuum with a flicker of dark energy. She was rewarded with a yelp and a startled shapechanger staring down from his perch on the counter. Smirking darkly, she sent the vacuum zooming after him, and entertained herself for a while with watching the vacuum chase Beast Boy all over the apartment until everywhere had been vacuumed.

Now for the Spackle.

Unfortunately, she had bought Spackle in tubes, which needed to be opened with scissors. The scissors were packed. The problem could have been solved easily by Beast Boy shifting into something with claws- but ever since he'd downed that coffee nothing had held his attention for more than fifteen seconds at a time. Eventually she dug out a tub of Spackle and some…spatula-looking things, she could never remember what they were called, and he caught on once he saw what she was doing.

Unfortunately, Raven discovered, she sucked at spackling. Or was that Spackling? Whatever…To make matters worse, even with his shortened attention span, Beast Boy was _good _at it. Even if he kept making stupid jokes she didn't get.

"Hey Rave," he giggled. "There was a hole here…it's gone now!"

…She was really starting to wonder what it was he found so entertaining about that phrase.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** There's some ShinobiCyrus tributes in here...I helped him move over break, we had some...issues...with the Spackling. And with the fact that I'd been given coffee. Ye-eah..._He _would be Raven in that short, I'd be Beast Boy. Wheee. The song he's singing is Grow Up by Simple Plan- it suits him. A lot. And a thousand nonexistent points to those that got the "There was a hole here" reference. And Cyrus, go write a more detailed vaccuum scene, I was outside cleaning the windows at that point. Also- Cy, you SUCK at Spackling.

There is a Bumper Cars...repetition...game..._thing,_ but I'll be using it later, so it'll be explained then. Red Cars Go Faster was actually a discussion I had with my mother. She was the one who pointed out that cops think so. I want a bright red Toyota Tacoma. Very badly.

And lastly, I know I have mail to answer, it's just that the last couple weeks of vacation got very, very crazy. I'm catching up on it now.

Saiyoko

...Reviews?


	15. Come Away, Come Away

**Disclaimer:** I wouldn't do an entire chapter devoted to Peter Pan. Would I?

Yes. Yes, as it turns out, I would.

**Whitewater**

**Come Away, Come Away  
**

* * *

**059. Spring Cleaning Time**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"What are you doing?" Beast Boy blinked as Cyborg heaved his door shut, kicking a pile of laundry out of the way, and then slumped against the closed door. After a moment he straightened up and glared.

"_We_," he stressed, starting to move further into the room and then thinking better of it, "are cleaning your room, because Robin is on his cleaning kick and Starfire already took refuge in Raven's room."

"Raven's room."

Cyborg shrugged. "Yeah, well, _Robin_ doesn't know it's clean."

Beast Boy flipped neatly from where he was sitting on the top bunk to what had to be the _only _clear space the floor offered. "So why do we _actually _have to clean?"

"Because unfortunately, Robin doesn't have the qualms about checking in here that he does about Raven's room."

His friend sighed and moved to a corner, motioning Cyborg to the other corner. "You start on that side, then."

Cyborg blinked. "You seem…willing."

"Actually?…I'm kinda sick of flying into my bed at night."

"Right…" Cyborg moved to his side of the room and began by sorting things into piles, mainly because he didn't know where else to begin. He found himself with the movies Hook, Finding Neverland, Peter Pan, Return to Neverland, a VHS tape of the play version of Peter Pan starring Mary Martin, and the newest movie version- all piled in with two battered copies of the book _Peter Pan _and newer copy of _Peter Pan in Scarlet._

"I'm starting to see a pattern here…"

A green head popped up across the room, excited. "Did you find my Sonic the Hedgehog tapes?"

"Nooo…but if Sonic the Hedgehog and Peter Pan are your role models, there are a lot of things that suddenly make more sense…" Cyborg inspected the case for the Mary Martin version more closely. "Hey, why is Peter played by a woman?"

"It's traditional," came the prim, if muffled, answer. Looking up again, Cyborg saw Beast Boy was headfirst in a cabinet he hadn't even known was there, pulling out comic after comic. Including a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog comics. "Peter Pan is supposed to be played by a woman, an' Captain Hook and Mr. Darling by the same guy."

Cyborg debated the wisdom of asking _why_ his friend knew this, then decided against it and settled for a neutral "Oh."

Evidently deciding he wanted the last word, Beast Boy added, "And sleeping in trees is really comfy til something startles you and you fall out!"

* * *

**060. Keep Your Promises**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

He's laughing and batting at the toy snake she gave him in a fit of insanity, and she doesn't know where the other are but it's somewhere _not here_. She glances up from her book every minute or so, unable to concentrate, and so sees a tiger- a wolf- a hawk- a chicken- flashing rapidly before her eyes, winning or losing the fight with the huge stuffed snake as he deems fit.

Finally she glances up and sees a raven ruffling green feathers at her, eyes bright and inquisitive, and she snaps. "Why can't you just grow up?" she snarls, and in an instant green fills her vision and she sinks back into the couch. His eyes find hers and none of the laughter lights them now.

"I promised not to," he says simply, and then he is gone, and the snake's beaded eyes stare accusingly, blankly, lightlessly at her from where it lays limp on the floor.

* * *

**061. Children's Logic**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Raven, will you please explain to them that I'm not Peter Pan!"

Raven glanced up at a fuming Robin and quirked an eyebrow, then saw Beast Boy grinning behind them. Still disgruntled about having slept on the roof, and recalling their last little R & R retreat, Raven nearly grinned herself.

She made a point of looking Robin over, shrugged as diffidently as possible, and observed mildly, "You _are _wearing tights, you _do _have a pretty girl flying around after you, and you _are _in charge of a lot of orphans."

Robin's eyebrow twitched. She saw Beast Boy start silently flashing the V is for Victory sign. Enjoying herself, she decided to continue.

"For that matter, Starfire does fly when she thinks happy thoughts, and so does Beast Boy. And Robin…" She looked directly at Beast Boy now, and let the smirk stretch out into a rare smile.

"Peter Pan does exist."

Robin whirled around to see who she was talking to, but by then they were both gone, phased through the floor, and he was met with only laughter.

* * *

**062. Hook**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Robin was seething. Mutiny, that's what it was; his team had gone nuts and decided to mutiny. Even Raven had joined in! Raven, when he expected her to be the sensible one! But no, the only one with any sense left _at all_ was Cyborg, which he attributed to the fact that Cyborg- like him- couldn't fly.

Oh, there was Cyborg now. Walking down the hallway. Whistling the tune from Hook- argh! _Why _did they have to watch that? _Why?!_

"Hey, Rob," Cyborg called out jovially, slowing down. Robin nodded to him, disgruntled and intending to continue on to his waiting cup of coffee, when Cyborg abruptly dropped to his knees and blocked his path.

Cyborg produced a Bo staff from behind his back, held it out, and declared with a grin, "You are the Pan!"

After a moment of shocked silence, Robin grit out, "I. Am. _Not_. I can't fly-"

- which was evidently Starfire's cue to sweep in, grab him by the shoulders, and hover above the floor. Robin writhed for a minute, gave up, and continued, "and I can't crow!"

And a green rooster came strutting around the corner, crowing.

"I'm not wearing green!" Robin tried, in desperation…and a flicker of darkness spilled a can of green paint over him. He sputtered and stared at Raven, who had materialized at the side of the hallway. She pulled her hood back and shrugged.

"You," she said calmly, "are too uptight, and he," and she nodded at Beast Boy, who popped back to human with a smile and a wave, "made some very good points on our last little…vacation."

"Where exactly did you two go?" Robin managed.

Raven gave him the barest hint of a smile, and answered readily. "Second star to the right, and straight on til morning!"

Robin could only stare.

* * *

**063. The Peter Pan Rant**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Raven had a laptop hidden in her room. This was not something she let on about. She used it mainly for her email, which very few people knew, and for keeping a journal. She refused to think of it as a diary. Diary sounded much too girly.

The point was, on a computer, it was protected by not one but a set of passwords.

Occasionally she added things to her journal that she got in emails- not chain letters, but the more humorous mail. Included was one from Beast Boy (and she had no idea how he'd gotten her email address) which she thought of as "the Peter Pan rant." She read it when she was in a dark mood.

It went something like this:

_To: DarkAzarath _

_From: GreenBeanMachine_

_Subject: all children, except one, grow up..oh and me, I don't grow up either, ever_

_wannawatchHookIwannawatchHookIwannawatchHook Iiiii'mmm hooked on feeeeel-in...You are the Pan!_

_Ruf-i-o ruf-i-o ruf-i-o RUFIOOO oh dear gods why did Robin let us watch SO MUCH Peter Pan? and how come I was always a lost boy when me an Star played except for the rare times I was a fairy?...wait don't answer that…but anyway I wasn't like Hook or a pirate or anything._

Pirates have to have grown up, Beast Boy, Raven thought fondly.

_You know Starfire and I were playing this game for hours earlier where we stole Rob's watch and reflected light off it telling each other to catch Tinkerbell HEY I found my copy of Peter Pan, it's all dogeared and scribbled in cuz me an Star memorised it and then staged the final fight between Hook and Pan in the middle of the common room, it was awesome, I got to be Peter Pan, I have a costume and everything...oh man that's weird…and then we knocked over the table while fighting...yeah. Fun times, that! Like five minutes after we were done Robin came in and as soon as he left Cyborg (he was watching) was like "oh thank god he didn't come in here five minutes earlier"_

She kind of wished she'd seen that. It promised to have been entertaining. Though…Beast Boy had _ memorized _something? That he didn't have to, no less?

_Whoa, I've been wandering around Neverland in Kingdom Hearts and then I started reading Peter Pan and watching Peter Panish clips on YouTube and maybe I should lay off the cappuccino now but I'm having fun dammit. BANGERANG._

_Oh man I found this sweet technopop songthing by some dutch band I've never heard of called Captain Hook and Peter Pan, it rocks. It roxorz my soxorz. Always wanted to say that. See this is why I never do stream-of-consciousness writing. Gotta love Zelda too, but it's still a dude in green tights with a fairy. Wheeeeeeeeeee. if you think this seems strange ask Cy about the ELVES if you ever get the chance. Caffeine highs are fun. fun fun funnity fun fun..fun? i'm not crazy i'm just a little unwell, i know sometimes you can't tell but wait awhile maybe then you'll see i'm even crazier than you thought. in fact i'm totally insane. i can flyyyyyy. WATCH me. _

He was banned from cappuccino. She wondered where he'd gotten it.

_Didja know we all dressed like peter pan characters last hallowe'en? huh didja? rob was hook and star was peter pan and cy was smee and I was tinkerbell (don't ask)and then later I got to be peter, HA screw gender roles._

She was there, actually…dressed as Tiger Lily, mercifully beneath her cloak. And they all had some_ lovely_ blackmail photos of him as Tinkerbell.

_Dark and sinister man, have at thee! do you have ANY idea how fun that line is when you get to attack the hell out of Hook afterwards? I DOOOO. Hook had fun too. it's two am and i'm sooooo wide awake right now._

_heyla i wanted to be both a pirate AND a lost boy when i saw peter pan the first time does that make any sense? i have a very cool pirate costume, i wore it once for hallowe'en; I bought nothing. We had everything i needed for a pirate costume already in the Tower. I love having an insane family._

She remembered the pirate costume, too. And she wondered if his referring to the team as family was conscious or not. In this state…she was guessing not.

_Looky looky i got Hooky- hey i got a fish hook caught in my foot once, weird thing was it didn't hurt, it bled a little when i yanked it out but i didn't feel anything. Is that normal? huh. second star to the right and straight on til morning! dammit now i wanna try that. Next time I go flying that'll be the first thing i'll do. i do believe in fairies i do believe in fairies i do believe in...huh. do ya think it'd piss people off if i stood in front of one of those hokey christian ex-gay camps and started yelling that over and over and over again? cuz now i wanna try that too. be a fun pride poster too- I DO BELIEVE IN FAIRIES, cuz there's one standing next to me, ha, he has the we're here we're queer deal with it sign. hook hookity hook hook!!! wheee, think happy thoughts, well i'm not flying but i think i'm technically high...flying high? who's higher? i dunno, which one of you is seeing things? tinker bell and the lost boys are here. is this the pirate's life? i guess it is. and all you have to do is think one happy thought and you will fly again. _

Oh dear gods, now he was joining causes. Not that she objected, actually it wasn't a bad idea, but she rather hoped he'd wait until he was….ah…sober, before actually wandering into any parades or protests.

_I have a toy rufio. Dunno where I got that thing. how come everything i like has either a dystopia or a TOTAL lack of adults? neverland, lord of the flies, KILL THE LAWYER!, brave new world, fahrenheit 451, the giver, v for vendetta...i have a problem with authority, apparently. maybe that's why all those quirky political quizzes say I'm an anarchist? yeah, down with government, i'd have SO much fun post-rapture cuz heyla it'd be fun. neverland? neverland. i made up my neverland once. i can go there if i try hard enough. whaddya thinnk dreams are made of? oh man too much caffeine.  
_

She thought about answering that part. Decided not to, to save herself a headache.

_  
right well. i'm gonna go run around neverland somemore and then watch Finding Neverland. woo hoo!  
_  
_LOVE YA  
Peter Pan _

The first time Raven read that email, she immediately made sure the door was locked. Then she hauled a bookcase in front of it.

Then she sat back and listened to the maniacal giggling from the next room over. For the rest of the night.

* * *

**064. Raven Crusoe**

_Contiuity: After_ I Do Believe In Fairies**  
**

"Raven, Raven, Raven! Look, it's the lagoon!"

Raven briefly debated telling him the lagoon wasn't real but decided it was an exercise in futility.

"Where?" she sighed, and he darted back and grabbed her wrist and tugged her forward and they burst out of the treeline.

"Here!" he declared triumphantly, and as he dropped her arm it dangled limply at her side at she stared. A sudden laugh was the only warning she had before a green dolphin was leaping in the spray of the waterfall that spilled over the glistening rocks, playing in the rainbows.

So maybe it wasn't _the_ lagoon. It was certainly the closest she'd ever seen. Beast Boy's head shot above water, human again, and he scrambled up a rock outcropping that was nearly dead center between the island beach and the semi-visible sandbar separating the lagoon from the ocean.

"Look, Rae! It's Marooner's Rock!"

She sighed and sat down beside the tree. "I'm just…going to meditate now." And she did.

Only to find, a few hours later, that Beast Boy had dragged together branches and formed crude lean-tos at the edge of the trees.

Well, Robin _had _given them a week off, with the others taking their weeks in shifts after them. And if they were going to be staying here for that time, she wanted better shelter than that.

Raven started levitating the lean-tos into the trees and manipulating the trees themselves. If she was sleeping in trees, then they were going to have the best damn treehouse they could make.

* * *

**065. Have At Thee!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Cyborg really wished he'd thought to record this.

"So, Pan," Starfire's voice might have been suitably intimidating if it weren't for the twinkle of laughter which underscored it, "this is all your doing."

Beast Boy drew himself up to a bit more than his full height- he was standing on the couch, actually,- and replied sternly, "Aye, James Hook, tis all my doing!"

"Proud and insolent youth, prepare to meet thy doom!"

"Dark and sinister man, have at thee!"

And with …ahem…'borrowed' Bo staffs, the two flew at each other, each grinning fiercely. Beast Boy failed to score a hit due to the height difference, and eventually Starfire went after him with her hook (made of foil). Beast Boy "stabbed" her, she dropped her staff, and he gestured magnanimously to the fallen weapon.

"Pan, who and what art thou?" but Starfire was grinning a bit too fiercely for Hook to stay believable.

And Beast Boy answered gladly, brandishing his stolen staff, "I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg!"

"To't again!" Starfire cried, and unwisely leapt onto the coffee table, tipping it of balance. With a dive Cyborg wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it, Beast Boy righted it and their fight continued. And at last Beast Boy kicked, and Starfire feigned a topple off a ship, and so when Robin came in to see what the noise he'd heard was (that would have been the table tipping) all three were collapsed around the room in laughter. Robin saw the hook, sighed, and left again.

* * *

**067. Clap Your Hands **

_Continuity: After Season Five_**  
**

Robin sighed. "It's just a stupid phrase. Look: I don't believe in…"

Two sets of hands clamped over his mouth. Even Cyborg and Raven's heads swiveled from their chess game.

"Don't say it," Starfire hissed, and slowly, Robin nodded, staring at her glowing green eyes. The hands withdrew.

Robin held both hands up defensively and stated, "I solemnly swear that I will never say that I don't…"

He was immediately hit by three couch cushions and one chess board. He shut up.

* * *

**068. I Won't Grow Up**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

They'd memorized the songs.

When the _hell _had they memorized the songs?

Raven listened with concealed amazement as Beast Boy sang and Starfire echoed, before they switched.

"We won't grow up-"

"-we won't grow up-"

"-We'll never grow a day!"

"We'll never grow a day!"

"And if someone tries to make us," Beast Boy flashed a meaningful glance at Robin, who was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee (and three empty cups) pretending he wasn't hearing this.

"And if someone tries to make us!" She felt Starfire's gaze on her, more inquisitive than accusing.

"We will simply run away!"

"We will simply run away!"

The two grinned at each other as Starfire flew a quick loop around the ceiling.

"No, I won't grow up- I promise that I won't- I will stay a kid forever-"

"-Stay a kid forever- and be banished if I don't!"

Robin's head hit the table with a _thunk_. Raven smiled inwardly. The rest of the team had been pulling Peter Pan-related pranks on him for a month now, and he was about ready to throw up his hands and join in. He was still baffled, he knew, as to why _she_ had.

But then, he hadn't seen the island, or slept in the trees. Hadn't seen Beast Boy's glowing face as he declared that this, here was _the _lagoon and _the _Marooner's Rock.

Voices swelled in a chorus, and Raven almost, _almost_, joined in. "Neverland will always be,the home of youth and joy and liberty- I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up, not me!"

"Not me," Raven said suddenly, smiling as she ducked her head to hide beneath her hood.

She heard a sigh, and then Robin's resigned, "Not I."

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Yes, I did just update, and yes, all of this save the "Peter Pan rant" was written between that last update and now. The rant was modified from the original which was sent to Cyrus while _I_ was on a caffeine high. The original was...actually, it was a bit crazier. 

TV Land is showing a MASH marathon, so I'm off to watch that. I'm starting to think it influences my writing, at least the sporadic jumps from drama to humour.

Oh, and the phrase Robin _almost _says in Clap Your Hands? I've never uttered those words in my life, and I'm not about to write them either. One of my personal superstitions (the other is that I won't burn Dragon's Blood incense).

I love to sleep in trees, for which my mother blames the movie Hook, and I've got that fight scene between Hook and Pan memorized. And have performed it. I was Pan- we were into it enough that Hook and I had bruises afterward, and our swords were rolled-up paper. And yeah, we did knock over a table, but I caught it. Fun times, English class!

...Reviews?


	16. Unthinking

**Disclaimer: **This chapter is for Katie, Chaplin, my Onyx, Azland, Hamper, Munch, all the other strays, and my coworkers. Please, whenever you go looking to adopt a pet, go to the shelters first. They need loving people and good homes.

* * *

**Whitewater**

**069. Unthinking**

_Continuity: Anytime**  
**_

There are things you say every day without really thinking about them. Usually they're harmless, an inside joke, a wry comment. Sometimes… they aren't.

A simple remark about how creepy she can be, laughter over whether he's had his shots, an unthinking observation about how much he can possibly feel through metal- and a shadow steps quickly back into the darkness, a bird becomes a cat and darts away, an older teenager abruptly draws away his approach and instead goes heavily back the way he came.

And that night, surveying his team wearily as they stay up far later than is wise, the leader wishes fervently that a few more people in his city knew how to keep their mouths shut.

* * *

**070. Generation Gap**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"Oh I don't want no more of Army life, gee Mom I wanna go home!"

Robin propped his head against his hand and stared blankly at the bills. He should be paying them. He had his checkbook out and the pen lay on the table beside it.

"Oh the soldiers in the Army they say we're pretty bright, we work on soldiers through the day and nurses through the night!"

He'd been sitting here for almost half an hour and had yet to pen one check. He was aware he was wasting time, he just couldn't quite bring himself to care at the moment.

Movement behind him caused him to glance up at Cyborg, who handed him one steaming cup of coffee and kept one for himself. Robin took it gratefully and blew across the top.

"Oh I don't want no more of Army life, gee Mom I wanna go home!"

Cyborg sat down next to him. Robin stared into his coffee cup for a moment and finally asked, exhausted, "Beast Boy watching MASH again?"

"Yep."

"What's Raven reading in there?"

"Something by Diana Gabaldon, when I left. Might've moved onto the Sue Grafton she had lined up by now though."

"Friendships in the Army they say are mighty rare, so I spend all my free time carousing with my mare!"

A sudden whinny and snort of laughter indicated that Beast Boy had, in fact, shifted briefly into a horse. Robin sighed and glanced up at Cyborg, who was watching him with a faintly worried expression. "And Starfire?"

"Is asking Raven for explanations about the show every few minutes, some of which Raven gives, some of which she doesn't."

"Ever feel like you fell through the generation gap?" Robin asked wryly, pushing his chair back and stretching. Cyborg snorted.

"What, you mean between the bills and the fact that the rest of the team is sitting in the common room watching MASH?"

"I don't want no more of Army life, gee Mom I wanna go home!"

"Among other things. I don't want them to identify that easily with people in a war zone. I don't want _any _us to identify with warfare that easily."

"Oh I don't want no more of Army life, Gee Ma, I wanna go, But they won't let me go, Gee Ma, I wanna go home!"

Cyborg shrugged, and said softly, "Better us than the civilians down in Jump." Leaning back, he continued, "Besides, I don't think it's the war they identify with so much as the teamwork, and that goes for all of us."

Robin smiled and picked up his pen. A second later the chair went crashing backwards and Cyborg fell to the ground.

"Ow..." he muttered, and Robin stifled his fears. They had some time to grow up yet.

* * *

**071. Blue Suede Shoes**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Cyborg lounged against the chain-link fence, occasionally glancing up at the diving board above the enclosed pool. "What exactly are we waiting for again, Beast Boy?"

His friend grinned. "Just wait- you won't regret coming to see this. I heard a couple of this guy's friends daring him to do this, and when I talked to them later they said he's never turned down a dare."

"So that's why there are other groups out here watching a closed pool in the middle of the night?"

Beast Boy nodded once, sharply, but his eyes were trained on the pool.

To Cyborg's complete shock, a teenager he didn't recognize abruptly came streaking through the crowd on the other side of the pool, tossed a unicycle over the fence- impressive enough in itself- climbed the fence, jumped down the other side, hauled the unicycle up to the high dive, climbed on, and proceeded to ride a unicycle off the high dive. Naked. While singing Blue Suede Shoes.

With a strangled sound, Cyborg turned and forked over ten dollars to a grinning Beast Boy.

* * *

**072. Safety in Numbers**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

A lot of animals migrate.

Far, far too many of them, in Beast Boy's opinion.

Those that didn't migrate at least ranged out over a territory, one rather larger than his island and Tower provided.

"Damn instincts," he muttered, idly kicking a can down a darkened street. "Stupid migratory, territorial instincts."

At least none of the others could say anything against his wandering off at night. After all, Robin did the same thing often enough, Beast Boy had run across him more than a few times. Made him wonder just when the masked leader got any sleep. _If_ he got any sleep.

Beast Boy certainly hadn't been getting any sleep. Not now, not in the spring, when his instincts were going crazy and at war with each other- he had to give in to some of them or be completely overwhelmed. This seemed the safest to give in to, the instinct that made him go out wandering the streets at four in the morning, ranging from the Tower island to the edge of Hell's Kitchen in one direction and just past the city limits going the other way.

He was at the edge of his territory now, in fact, had paced out the entire length of it in this direction and left unobtrusive claw marks on some of the walls. He hated doing that. It made him feel far too much like an animal. But- it could be worse than claw marks, and he was glad it wasn't. And anyway, this was where his territory ended, and this was the building he took such care to visit.

He became a cat, no larger than a small kitten, and slipped through a grate and into the building. He resumed human form as soon as he was in- they knew him here and certainly weren't about to begrudge him visiting.

No one was here yet, and he navigated through emergency lighting until he reached the kennels. He let himself into Katie's kennel first and laughed as the chocolate lab pounced on him immediately, licking his face and wriggling excitedly from side to side. She cocked her head to one side and whined plaintively and he laughed harder and swiped a treat from the jar on a counter outside the kennel.

When he was done playing with Katie he slipped the latch on her door, slid himself out and closed it, then went off to the cat rooms to spend some time with them. Chaplin in particular, a black and white ball of fluff and energy, loved the play time, and Beast Boy himself was glad of the excuse to do nothing but simply play.

It was six by the time Beast Boy was done visiting, and as he yawned and headed out the door he passed Penny coming in and waved and grinned at her. Penny was in charge of the shelter and had first invited him in last year when he was wandering around, a bit earlier than he did now. She'd been late closing and…well, somehow he'd been volunteered to help, as Jump City's resident shape changer. Now he came here fairly often during the spring and autumn.

He walked down the street, whistling. He'd been all around his territory and had enjoyed himself at the shelter. He wasn't all that surprised when Raven alighted beside him and matched his pace. Okay, sorta surprised, but not all _that_ surprised.

They continued down the street in silence for awhile, until Beast Boy broke it.

"So," he said brightly, "anyone sleeping tonight?"

Raven only shrugged, and the silence came creeping back. Beast Boy heaved a sigh and made a face. Raven had come to meet him and walk back to the Tower with him almost every night this spring. Part of him was touched, but part of him felt like she was babysitting him, and that was irritating. So long as Robin didn't deign to descend upon them as well- he _knew_ Rob was still up on the rooftops somewhere- he figured he could deal with it.

Lost in his thoughts, Beast Boy didn't see the mugger coming. Raven obviously did, because the boy was hanging from his ankles in dark chains by the time Beast Boy gathered his wits. And now Robin did land beside them, and nod once, and Raven returned to walking alongside him on the way to the Tower. And for the first time, Beast Boy wondered if any of them had really been out in the city alone since the incident with Soto.

"…Raven?"

"Mmm."

"…Thanks."

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Unthinking: Seriously folks, watch what you say, you don't know who you're hurting. You could hurt someone you love and respect without ever knowing. 

Generation Gap: Because the winter hols showed me that I've apparently fallen through, as everyone else my own age was off somewhere while I discussed things like bills and books and MASH with our parents. And grandparents. The song is from the Season Five episode Movie Tonight.

Blue Suede Shoes: Friend of my mother did that when she was my age. I love that story.

And Safety in Numbers: I've worked over two years in an animal hospital and am in school to become a licensed vet tech. My Onyx is a shelter kitty and she couldn't be more perfect as far as I'm concerned. It makes sense that Beast Boy would be aware of the shelter animals, and as far as them safeguarding each other, hell, my friends and family do the same and we don't have the enemies the Titans do.

Side note: I love MASH because I've worked in a hospital, and in any kind of medical setting, you work as a team or not at all even if there's someone there you dislike. I think the show gets that sense of teamwork through, especially in the later episodes.

...Reviews?


	17. Kunguru

**Disclaimer:** I live off ramen and cappucino. Trust me, not mine. And that first shot? It's harder to learn than you'd think.

**Whitewater**

* * *

**073. Save Them All**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Cyborg knelt down slowly next to his friend, who was holding a soaking wet kitten close to his body and whispering to it soothingly.

"Beast Boy."

Beast Boy didn't answer, but instead curled tighter around the kitten.

"Beast Boy," and it was Raven this time, landing lightly beside them both. "Beast Boy, it's hurt- it's dying."

"She," Beast Boy murmured. "She's hurt."

"She," Raven replied patiently, "is dying, Beast Boy. You can't help her now-_ I_ can't help her now."

"I know, but…" He looked up at Raven, and he looked lost and helpless with the kitten hugged close. "But it's our fault she got hurt. If we hadn't been fighting here, none of that rubble would have fallen, and…"

Cyborg rested a hand on his shoulder. "And if we hadn't been fighting, Plasmus would have torn up a lot more of the city, and a lot more damage would have been done. More animals would have been hurt, and not only that, humans would have been hurt."

Raven winced internally. That wasn't the right thing to say; to Beast Boy, a life was a life, human or animal. Before he could react, she held out her hand, "Here."

He looked up at her again, ears drooping, but with a spark of hope in his eyes. "I thought you said you couldn't save her?"

She shook her head negatively. "I can't. But I can keep her from being in pain."

Reluctantly, he nodded, and handed her the kitten. "Mia," he whispered as he handed her over, and she knew he was naming her before she was gone. Raven closed her eyes briefly and let light wash through the kitten.

She opened her eyes again and saw that Beast Boy was standing now, and Cyborg had moved away slightly to stand behind him. She walked to Beast Boy, laid the kitten in his arms gently, and said quietly, "You can't save them all."

* * *

**074. Freecycling**

_Continuity: After _Employee of the Month

Okay, so it wasn't perfect. It wasn't pretty, or even in good condition. It certainly wasn't practical.

But it was free, and more importantly it was _his_, so he felt justified.

Still, when Cyborg found Beast Boy in his garage singing tunelessly and polishing an old motorcycle, he was speechless for a moment.

Then… "Uh, Beast Boy?"

"Yes?" The changeling grinned happily.

"Where did you get a motorcycle?!"

"Jump City Freecycyle," he was still grinning. "It isn't in great condition, but I can get it fixed up!"

Somehow Cyborg had the feeling _he_ was the one who'd be fixing it up. Beast Boy patted it lovingly. "Not a moped," he said brightly, "But it's almost as good, and it was free and it's mine!'

"...Is that a Honda Nighthawk?" Beast Boy nodded. "Um, dude, that's a girl's bike."

"It is _not!_" Beast Boy clutched his motorcycle protectively. "It's just smaller, is all. Better for me."

"It's smaller," Cyborg said wryly, "because it's for _girls._"

The budding fight was interrupted when Raven came down the stairs and paused, glancing at the motorcycle and then at the boys and raising an eyebrow.

"Freecycle," Cyborg sighed, and Raven sighed herself.

* * *

**075. Kunguru**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Cyborg leaned against his car with a contented sigh and patted the hood affectionately. Beast Boy watched him from where he sprawled on the garage stairs, safely out of the 'damage' radius- Cyborg loved the little grass stain, but he also loved his car, and he didn't feel like risking it.

"Does it have a name?"

It took a moment for the question to register, but when it did Cyborg blinked at his friend. "Of course she has a name, she's the T-car." And a personality too, as all machines did after a while, but he wasn't sure he wanted to get into that. For more reasons than he wanted to think of.

"I mean, besides T-car."

"Maybe, but that's personal," Cyborg replied evasively, and picked up the polishing cloth from where he'd set it. After a moment he paused, and then said curiously, "Did the B-ped have a name?"

He heard the changeling shift on the stairs. "…Maybe."

Cyborg smirked. "Well then, what was it?"

"You first."

"Nuh-uh, grass stain, you started this conversation. You're first."

He shifted around on the stairs again, but didn't cross the line Cyborg and Raven had established at the edge of the stairs. "..Fine. She was Kunguru."

Cyborg blinked, then turned to stare at Beast Boy, who shrugged uncomfortably. "And that means…?"

Beast Boy shook his head stubbornly. "Your turn."

"Hjerte av Maskinen." Cyborg smirked again; Beast Boy wasn't the only one to use names in different languages. Ha, he'd shown him.

"…Heart of the Machine?"

Cyborg, who had turned back to his baby, whirled back towards his friend again. "You know _Norwegian?_"

"No." He smirked wickedly. "I'm just very good at guessing."

Threats and cajoling did nothing to help him learn what Kunguru meant, but about a week later he discussed it with Robin and after some digging around on the internet they found out it was Swahili.

Roughly translated, it meant "Raven."

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **_Very _roughly translated, but that's a technicality...For anyone who's curious, yes, my car has a name. And a personality. He (my car just feels male, for whatever reason, screw tradition) is Drages Brann. It's Norwegian too.

I joined Freecycle and immediately had to talk myself out of picking up a motorcycle that would have done noting but eat money. Knowing that, I was still tempted. Had the "Dude, that's a girl's bike" discussion before. Guy still thinks it's just small. Sorry if I offended anyone there, but it is, dammit.

And yes, Save Them All is depressing. So is being taught that steadily over three years, because no matter how many times you hear it you still try. As far as a life is a life- let's just say, I'm one of those odd ones who throws spiders outside instead of killing them, and that's when I don't just leave them alone. I'd rather have the spiders than the bugs they're eating.

...Reviews?


	18. Aye, Sea Turtles!

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Raven has the right idea with that tea. I started drinking green tea and doing Tai Chi a little while ago and I don't remember the last time I felt this good. Sooo, this is something me an' Cy wanted to try...this went up when the next chapter of Five Stories did, and there're some cross references now. Let us know if you like, heyla?**  
**

**Whitewater **

* * *

**76. If Wishes Were Fishes We'd Walk On The Sea**

_Continuity: Anytime_**  
**

Cyborg leaned into the wind, closed his eyes, and smiled. He soaked in the feel of the wind and sun on those parts of the body that could still feel the wind and sun. He opened his eyes again, picked up a penny, tossed it on his palm a moment, and then hurled it off the Tower roof into the sea.

"What are you doing?"

He turned, saw Raven, and shrugged. "Making a wish."

For a moment she looked like she was going to deliver a scathing comment, but only for a moment. Then, looking thoughtful, she leaned over the edge herself and threw her own penny. It didn't go quite as far as Cyborg's but it did make it a good distance out into the waves.

Then Raven's green shadow trotted up behind them both, grinned wickedly, and hurled a penny. As they all watched it twirl through the air, obviously not going to make it far past the island rocks, Beast Boy leaned forward and yelled into the gap between roof and sea, "I wish I had a penny!"

* * *

**77. Happy Robin's Day!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

While Robin was, in Cyborg's words, 'paranoid as hell,' he usually felt fairly secure in his own room. Between the fact that he was already inside the Tower's security, the fact that he would _know_ if there was one noise where one noise should not be, and the simple bell-on-the-doorknob trick he'd been using for years, he didn't think anyone could sneak up on him in his own room.

Beast Boy seemed to like proving him wrong.

"HAPPY ROBIN'S DAAAY!"

"GAH!" Robin fell out of bed and landed on the floor with a curse. He glared blearily up at Beast Boy. And Cyborg. And Starfire. And….

"…How did you get in here?"

Beast Boy's grin grew even wider. "Er…a magician never reveals his secret?"

Robin glared at him, eyes promising the kind of slow death only a sleep-deprived mind can conceive. Beast Boy gulped and backed away slowly, then held out a gift-wrapped box, and spat out, "HappyRobin'sDayI'mjustgonnagonow!" and ran.

Robin looked at the remaining Titans and raised an eyebrow. "Robin's…Day?"

Cyborg shrugged. "It's Father's Day, you're in charge, and we all thought BB could use an excuse to celebrate."

"…Robin's Day."

"Yes."

"I don't know whether I should be grateful or alarmed…"

"Wait till after the party to decide," Cyborg suggested.

Robin stared at him. "Party?"

* * *

**78. Flighted**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Flying. Was. Awesome.

Those three words were occupying pretty much all of Beast Boy's skull space right at the moment. Okay, so 'Raven looks pretty flying' was probably jumbled up in there somewhere too, but that wasn't important.

What was _important_ was that right _now_ he was miles and miles above the ground, soaring in that silent space between clouds and sun where the air was thinner and the girls were doing midair tumbles all around him. Occasionally a gust of wind would bring him a snatch of Star's laughter, and he did a wingover and saw that Raven's hood had flipped back and she was smiling. He went into a slow dive and skimmed the top of the clouds, trailing wisps of cirrus from his talons, and would have smiled himself if a beak were equipped to do so.

The channel of the clouds stretched on forever, and unless or until a Titan alert sounded, the three of them would keep following them.

* * *

**79. Aye, Sea Turtles!**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"Fix the obstacle course," Beast Boy muttered to himself, stomping unnecessarily hard down the island path. "Fix the obstacle course- man, how was I supposed to know it wasn't 'built to withstand an African elephant?' It's _our_ obstacle course, shouldn't it be able to handle anything we can do to it?" He kicked a rock- and then paused, a grin dawning on his face as the _best idea ever _struck him. 

And he wouldn't have to fix the obstacle course!

It was a while later when anyone thought to look for him, and when they did it was because Robin suddenly noticed that not only had he not seen Beast Boy in hours but there were some very strange noises coming from outside.

"Titans, go!"

When he, Cyborg, and the girls launched themselves outside, prepared for an attack, they beheld….sea turtles. Sea turtles covering their small island. In the spring.

"…Okay. Where is he?"

"He would be the green one," Raven deadpanned. Cyborg turned to stare at her, then at the turtles, then at her. Then decided he wasn't going to bother stating the obvious.

"Don't worry," Raven added, and there was a note of irony in her voice now, "if any of these turtles gets any… friskier, we'll find him soon."

A horrified scream a moment later proved her right.

* * *

**80. Clipped Wings**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Beast Boy senses it first. His head comes up and his ears shoot straight forward and he sniffs the air and a wild light comes into his eyes.

Beast Boy sense it first, but Raven and Starfire are seconds behind him, and a moment after they all stare into the distance they turn to each other and their eyes meet.

Another moment, and they're gone, out to catch a flight on the breeze, and now Cyborg and Robin's eyes meet as they hear Starfire laughing wildly and a hawk's cry.

The three of them only act like this when the wind blows _just so_ and it's a perfect day for flying, and unless there's an alert, they won't be back until sunset. This is the only time the two grounded Titans truly feel the lack of wings.

* * *

**81. Bible Belt**

_Continuity: During Season Five_

"I wanna know his name."

"You don't _need_ to know his name. It's a movie, it doesn't matter."

"Yeah, but I _want _to know his name."

Raven sighed and leaned back further into the pillows she'd arranged behind her back, watching Beast Boy out of the corner of her eye. He shifted briefly into a dog and padded a circle on his bed before reverting to human with a happy sigh. "It is much too late to be having this discussion."

"Much too early, you mean."

"Yeah. Sure. What are we doing, exactly?"

"Um, watching Beauty and the Beast at four in the morning?"

"All right. Why?"

He turned to her and grinned widely. "'Cause I asked you to and you can't resist me?"

Raven picked up her tea, studied it a minute, and drank down the entire cup swiftly. She grimaced as it burned her throat, but she'd pay that price to be a little more _awake_ right now.

Because Beast Boy's reason wasn't why they were staring at a flickering TV screen in a motel room at four in the morning. The real reason- was that they were very far from home at the moment, and Robin's paranoia had infected them all. The two of them had last watch, dawn watch, and consequently didn't particularly want to be awake.

She probably would have dismissed Robin's worries as ungrounded if it weren't for the way the townsfolk had reacted to them when they arrived. They'd stared wide-eyed at the Titans, and when Beast Boy turned to say something she actually saw one woman make the sign of the cross at him.

So.

So they had _one _motel room, for all five of them, and they were taking turns being on watch despite the security of four walls. She eyed Starfire and Robin curled up on the cot; that was _not _where they'd begun their watch. Cyborg slumped with his back to the door, for all intents and purposes dead to the world. Which left her sitting up with Beast Boy and watching whatever happened to be on.

He'd been quiet. She looked over and saw he was staring at the television, and there was a look in his eyes she couldn't quite place. Then she looked at the movie itself- the townsfolk were gearing up to kill the Beast, and she had a suspicion it was the repeated cries of "Kill the Beast!" that was getting to him.

She changed the channel and pretended not to see his glance of gratitude.

* * *

**82. Not-So-Subtle Love Songs**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Haaard to say what it is I see in you, wonder if I'll always be with you!"

Raven woke to a warbling voice from just outside her door. He sounded like he was just outside her door, anyway. She groaned and got up knowing he wasn't going to go away on his own. And the others were in Steel City helping with a prison escape so she was on her own.

"Words can't say and I can't do enough to prove-"

Raven opened the door, annoyed, and an insult died when she saw him standing _right_ outside the door with a party hat draped over one ear, a homemade cake in his hands, and the widest grin she'd ever seen plastered across his face.

"- It's all for you!"

The grin widened somehow and Raven cracked the barest of smiles and followed him out into the hallway. It seemed the last week had been too boring for him, and she'd been kind of tired of nothing happening herself. And the others weren't here….

"Party time," Beast Boy said, grinning.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** I've had some woman make the sign of the cross at me! And I am very proud of that, seeing as all I was doing was twitching. Nerve disorder, eh. Should probably concern me more, but y'know what? Occasionally someone thinks I'm possessed and frankly it's funny. Lev totally did the penny thing. Song is Sister Hazel's _All For You_. 

In other news! Still working on One Which Makes the Heart Run Over. Also, if anyone's on GaiaOnline, Shadow's gotten me on there; I'm DragonkynRei. Come bug me. _Also_, if anyone's interested, I have a Teen Titans quiz on Quizilla under the name SaiyokoKatsaragi. I tried to make it accurate without being predictable. Been up there for ages, I just forgot about it.

Oh, and Beast Boy became a fly, flew in, and let the others in. Yep. That's what happened. ...Totally.

...Reviews?


	19. Gwee!

**Disclaimer:** So this chapter is dedicated to Aeta Aella. Why? Because not only did she come find me on Gaia, she _gave me a Gwee._ That is also, by the way, why this chapter is out so quickly.

And the way to make Sai _love you forever_ is to give Sai anything which so much as resembles as dragon. As my Gwee is a dragon you can see what happened.

Also! The Great Outdoors contains a couple of religiously offensive jokes. They are remnants from the actual trip the short is based on and I apologize in advance if anyone is offended. I assure you they were hilarious at the time.

* * *

**Whitewater**

**083. The Great Outdoors, Part I  
**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"…Remind me again why we are doing this."

Starfire clapped delightedly as she flew a tent pole up, watching as Robin and Cyborg tried to pitch the boy's tent across the firepit. "I shall remind you! Friend Beast Boy has wanted to go camping for the longest time, and Friend Robin has decided that we need a break, and also…" Starfire lowered her voice. "And also, Friend Beast Boy has been much saddened since Terra's return. Robin is hoping that this will do the cheering of our friend."

"That part I understood. What I _don't _ understand is why we are in an almost-deserted campground where the only entrances and exits involve fording rivers and our communicators refuse to work. Even Cyborg can't call out of here."

Starfire shrugged. "It has many good trees for climbing and many trails for hiking. Also, it is out of the way enough that we should be able to spend the weekend relaxing."

There was a crash as the green hawk tugging the corner of the boy's tent into place fell and resolved with a startled squawk into a green changeling as he hit the ground. Raven rubbed her temples. "Yes. Relaxing."

"Yo, BB, it isn't that hard! Can you fly it up again?" Cyborg helped the shifter up and propped him against the tent stakes. Robin shook his head at the two.

"Why don't you two go see if there's anywhere in this place that the communicators will work? I think I can handle the tent myself."

Cyborg smirked and let the tent drop on Beast Boy's head. Beast Boy let out an indignant yelp and shot out from beneath the fabric, glaring at Cyborg before smiling evilly. "Just for that," the shifter said, assuming a falsely serious expression, "you're going to hell."

From the other side of the collapsed tent, Robin laughed. "Just for that, you're going to hell" had recently become Beast Boy's favorite way to end an argument. An odd thing to say, but it always, _always_ diffused enough tension to kill the argument. Probably because Beast Boy had a talent for saying it at the most ridiculous times.

A tent pole thwacked Robin in the head, mid-laugh. "Jesus H. Christ!" he cursed, bringing his hands to his throbbing head as Beast Boy and Cyborg began laughing. The girls had long since finished pitching their tent and drifted over to watch.

"What does the H stand for?" Starfire wondered.

Cyborg shrugged. "I dunno- Henry?"

Beast Boy snorted and suddenly doubled over with laughter. Snickering, he managed to get out, "Jesus Henry Christ! You come down off that cross this instant!"

Now Robin doubled over, laughing.

"You're gonna catch hell from your father if he sees you up there!" Cyborg added mock-sternly. Raven shook her head, but she was smirking, too.

"Race ya to that tree!" Cyborg grinned a challenge at Beast Boy.

"You're on!" Cyborg darted down the hill they had pitched their tents on, Beast Boy close behind him as an osprey.

Raven shook her head and turned back to Robin. "Are you done with your tent, yet?"

Robin stood back and looked at it. "Yeah, I think so. We're putting the gear in this one?"

"We're putting _your _gear in this one. I'd rather not trust mine and Star's gear to you lot." At the bottom of the hill, Beast Boy had flown into the top branches of a tree and looked like he was taunting Cyborg, who was yelling at him from the ground.

"Yo, grass stain, get your green butt down here _now_!"

Beast Boy turned into a squirrel, darted up a few more branches and chittered at Cyborg. Starfire giggled and flew down to join them, leaving Raven and Robin to unload the rest of the gear by themselves. Robin opened the T-car's trunk and started to lift out the cooler. Black energy tugged it out of his hands and settled it next to the firepit. Robin turned and saw Raven moving the rest of the gear the same way.

"Hey, guys," Beast Boy shouted from his tree. He was sitting on the highest branch, legs dangling, as Cyborg muttered angrily at the base. There was a large piece of trunk missing where Cyborg had tried to climb the tree. "The communicators still won't work! I think we're just gonna have to deal with it!"

Robin sighed. "Well, hopefully they'll be okay."

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Exactly who did you leave in charge of the Tower, again? I thought Titans East were busy recently."

"…Uh…Kid Flash and….Jinx…" Robin replied slowly, scratching the back of his head. Raven's eyes widened slightly.

"_Who!_"

Robin held up his hands defensively. "Look, they needed the practice and we needed the help. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Cyborg was shaking the tree now. Starfire giggled as Beast Boy fell out of it with a yelp, landing on all fours on the ground. The three made their way back up the hill, where Robin had backed away from Raven stuttering about getting the fire going.

"Hey, uh…did anyone bring any wood?" Cyborg asked, scratching his head. Everyone turned to stare at him.

"…No," Raven finally concluded, looking around at the others. Everyone else shook their heads as well.

"There's some dead wood over there," Cyborg offered. Then he slid a chainsaw out of his arm and grinned. "And plenty of trees."

Beast Boy grinned back and morphed into a beaver. Robin drew what appeared to be a hatchet out of his utility belt, making Raven wonder just how space that thing _had._ Raven massaged her temples. "I don't know whether to join you, or take shelter."

Starfire looked lost for a moment, before her hands lit eagerly with green energy.

Raven opted to take shelter, ducking into the T-car.

She was glad she did, as for the next ten minutes the rest of the Titans massacred nearby trees. Raven was fairly certain this was illegal- well, in all but Beast Boy's case, as he was currently a beaver. She eyed him and shook her head; that wood could _not_ taste good.

Starfire flew the wood back to the firepit and dumped all of it in. Robin pulled about half of it back out, saying they needed to save it for later.

Before they could get the fire started it began to pour. They all ducked into tents…and not very long after, all three boys came barreling unhappily into the girl's tent, soaked. Raven looked at them.

"Your tent flooded."

"Yes," Robin growled, flinging himself down on Starfire's sleeping bag. Starfire didn't seem to mind, but Raven graced Cyborg and Beast Boy with a Glare of Death lest they get any ideas. Since they'd really seen Raven makes things explode with Power from her Eyes they wisely avoided getting any ideas and both huddled near the entrance to the tent.

"Well," Raven said flatly, surveying her dripping teammates, "this is off to a good start."

* * *

**084. Gwee!**

_Continuity: Anytime_

_Beast Boy is not allowed on the computer and is ESPECIALLY not allowed on GaiaOnline._

A yell rang through the Tower in the early morning, startling Robin out of his newspaper clipping stupor in the Birdcave, causing Raven to snap out of her meditation and drop several inches through the air, waking Starfire, and….doing absolutely nothing as far as Cyborg was concerned, he was in the garage tinkering with the T-car and completely oblivious to the rest of the Tower's alarm.

It was Raven who made out the words first, and it turned out to be unfortunate that Cyborg was in the garage, as he was the only one Beast Boy's wildly triumphant cry would have made sense to.

_"I got a Gwee!"_

"A Gwee," Raven said, leaning over his shoulder and blinking, having phased through the walls. "A Gwee is what, exactly?"

Beast Boy pointed excitedly at the screen, or more specifically at a small green-haired avatar on the screen, and at the tiny dragon which accompanied it. "That's a Gwee!" he exulted.

Raven blinked, nonplussed. When he got out of the chair and started dancing, however, she decided to find something else to do. _Now._

* * *

**085. Zoonotic**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Beast Boy groaned from where he'd managed to curl up on the bench in a position Cyborg had thought only dogs and cats were capable of. He didn't think humanoid limbs were supposed to move that way…

"He's not gonna be happy about this when he's feeling lucid," Cyborg informed Raven, who'd accompanied him and was floating about a foot above and to the left of Beast Boy, busily collecting stares- and in the case of one high-strung dog, snarling lunges that brought him up short on his leash. The dog's owner was ignoring him, though, so Cyborg figured the dog was _always_ like that.

When he looked at her again Raven had somehow managed to collect the hospital cat, who was purring contentedly in her lap.

A puzzled-looking woman in dragon print scrubs and a lab coat came around the counter and asked, "Beast Boy?"

Cyborg stood up and patted Beast Boy on the back gently. "Yo, that's us. Let's go."

Raven settled on the floor and helped him haul Beast Boy to his feet and get him into an exam room. Dragon print lady closed the door and turned to them, still looking faintly amused, but not nearly as surprised as Cyborg felt she should.

"I'm Dr. Claire," she introduced herself brightly. "What seems to be the problem?"

"We're not sure," Raven answered for them. "We thought it was just a winter cold, but that doesn't seem to be it. In fact, it doesn't seem to be any kind of human illness, which is why we're here."

Dr. Claire listened patiently as Raven described the symptoms, nodding or asking questions occasionally. Mainly, he'd been coughing a lot and running a fever. Cyborg leaned against the wall and gazed down at where Beast Boy had curled up on _this_ room's bench.

"Well," Claire said when Raven finished, "it sounds like kennel cough. I'd like to run a lab test and be sure, but until then, I can give you some antibiotics. If he hangs around dogs a lot that's probably where he got it. I'd give him a vaccination, but with his DNA, that's probably unwise."

Raven thanked her and they went back out to the waiting room.

"…He's still going to kill us."

Raven shrugged. "He should be happy enough we caught it before it became pneumonia." She called up a disc of dark energy and Cyborg hoisted Beast Boy onto it, where he promptly curled around Raven's legs and went to sleep. Raven looked disgruntled but tolerated it.

"See ya back at the Tower," and Cyborg watched them head home.

* * *

**086. Whoo, Tea!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Beast Boy was on a mission.

It turned out Raven drank more than one kind of tea. And while he _really liked_ the catnip one, he also really disliked the complete loss of control it caused him. And the loss of coherency. Well, maybe not the loss of coherency, he wasn't all that coherent most of the time anyway, but…That wasn't the point.

The point was, there was more than one kind of tea in the Tower, and she had come home with this _super friggin awesome energy boost_ green tea the other day. He'd seen it. She'd seen that he'd seen it and she'd hidden it, the sneak.

So he was on a _missi_ _on._ A mission fueled by large amounts of caffeine from stolen coffee and by the fact that he hadn't slept in two days because insomnia had gotten together all his friends and jumped him in a crazy insomnia gang and proceeded to pummel him. Of course the caffeine _might _have _contributed_ to the insomnia, but who really cared about details?

He searched high. He searched low. He snuck into Raven's room and searched in various forms. Finally it was a curious green feline that tugged several tea bags out from between rows of books on the gothic-looking bookcase and jumped for joy. If you've ever seen a feline jump for joy you'll know this would have been very entertaining to watch and resulted in him losing his balance. He landed lightly on his feet and streaked madly off down the hall, tea bags clenched in his jaws.

And so, his mission was completed, and _no one else _slept for the next few days _either_.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Yes, dragon print scrubs exist. Yes, I own them. Yes, I wear them _all the time. _No, Dr. Claire is not me, she is in fact based off my boss who I've looked up to the past few years. There will be at least one more part to The Great Outdoors. On that note, is anyone reading this offended by the f-bomb? Because the camping thing is based off prom weekend, and that particular part of the tale doesn't work without it. 

Yeah. Dances are for sissies. _We _went camping.

If anyone is interested my Gwee is named Roy. There is a reason for this, I swear.

**ahilty's addition to the Beast Boy list: **

_Just because it is full moon does not give you the right to sit on the roof as a wolf howling,_

_ especally if you are sitting just above Raven's room._

...Reviews?


	20. Stories

**Disclaimer: **So I've been on Lab Animal Care at school the past week. This is not a job, mind you, this is part of the class. I spend at least an hour each day with small furry animals cleaning up after, feeding, and playing with them. This would be fine except that two of the rabbits hate me, I found Peanut the Guinea pig dead on my second day, and I was shanghai'd into the Avian and Reptile Care group temporarily despite being two quarters away from it because they are all afraid of snakes. Yeah. And I've had monstrous amounts of material to study. That's where I've been. Wheeee. (I honestly am more cheerful right now than I sound here. The snakes really cheered me up. And the tea. I swear by my tea.)

* * *

**Whitewater**

* * *

**087. All He Wants**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

This was stupid.

This was stupid, and ridiculous, and she should leave. Not like she wasn't attracting enough stares here.

After all, Raven of the Teen Titans in a _toy store?_ She was almost surprised there weren't more people running for their cameras.

But Beast Boy wanted this toy, and it was all he wanted, and she was being stupid and naïve and crazy enough to go out looking for it. "What do you want for your birthday?" and _all he wanted_ was this damn vague description of a toy, something furry that spoke and flicked its ears and responded to you, and she saw plenty that were furry and plenty that responded but none that were both.

Raven tapped politely on the shoulder of a woman in front of her. "Excuse me, miss?" She ignored the shocked look on the woman's face and continued, "Do you know where I can find something small and furry, which responds to anyone playing with it?"

From somewhere behind her Raven heard a snicker and someone suggest, "Beast Boy?"

…She chose to ignore that.

"Heyla," someone tapped Raven's shoulder and she turned, swiftly, bringing her shoulder out of their reach. A girl about her own age grinned at her sheepishly and held something out. "This anything like what you're looking for?"

Raven glanced down at the package and felt the sides of her mouth twitch. It was a set of Beast Boy action figures, one in his human form, one of him as a sea turtle, and one of him as a cat- which meowed and had ears that flicked back and forth.

"That would be perfect," Raven said slowly. She glanced up to thank her helper again, but the girl was gone. No…never mind, she was in a different section of the toy store, looking at…Lego dragons?

No wonder she knew how to find something Beast Boy would like, she seemed to share his attention span. Raven sighed and went to the counter to pay for her 'find,' an ordeal all by itself.

"He had better appreciate this…"

As it turned out, Beast Boy was very happy with his kitten and sea turtle.

Raven, on the other hand, was very entertained by her Beast Boy. It turned out _that _part of the set also had flicking ears and said "Duuudes!" when you pressed a button on its back.

...If anyone asked, it was a voodoo doll.

* * *

**088. Vices and Virtues**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Raven was going to have to revise her opinion.

Beast Boy with coffee or cappucino or Mountain Dew or catnip tea or almost anything else with caffeine, was bad.

Beast Boy with medicinal forms of tea….?

…Somehow, his theft of several bags of her green tea had sent him off on a week-long cleaning spree. Raven leaned against his doorframe and raised an eyebrow at his room.

She could see the floor. That alone would have been a monumental achievement. However, even more impressive was that he had, for the first time in his life as far as she knew, picked up the vacuum with the intention of using it. Granted, he had 'borrowed' Cyborg's mp3 player and turned it up loud enough to drown out the vacuum noise (and was currently singing to Blink 182's _What's My Age Again?_ very, very out of tune), but he _hated_ the vacuum.

"My friends say I should act my age, what's my age again, what's my age again?" Beast Boy warbled very, very loudly. He snapped the power on the vacuum off with his foot and hefted the hose attachment into the air, playing air guitar badly.

Cyborg joined her in the doorway and they both just watched their friend for a long moment. Finally Cyborg said, "Rae, I don't know what's in that tea of yours, but if you can get him addicted to _this _one that'd be great."

* * *

**089. ** **Worried About You**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Beast Boy crossed his arms and sulked as Cyborg checked his teeth. He'd been feeling kind of funny, but this was ridiculous. And embarrassing. And other negative adjectives he didn't feel like coming up with.

"I'm fine," he muttered, but since his mouth was open it came out more like "I fi."

Cyborg gave him a Look he'd probably learned from Raven. "You damn near bit through your lip. You're not fine, and if you keep tryin' to tell me that you are, I'm gonna go get Starfire and ask her to make some of her 'healing sakash.'

Beast Boy went back to pouting. Cyborg rolled his eyes. "Look, grass stain….you ever trim your fangs?"

A muffled "No" came back as an answer. Cyborg frowned. "An' d'you ever eat anything that isn't soft food?" He stepped back and allowed Beast Boy to close his mouth and work his jaw around a little. "Carrots," Beast Boy muttered. "Some other fruits and vegetables."

"That wouldn't be enough." Both boys looked up and saw Raven standing in the doorway. Beast Boy winced.

"You need something tougher to chew on," Raven continued, stepping into the med bay with them. "Something tough enough to wear your fangs down."

"I'm not a damn hamster!" Beast Boy snapped, nettled. The other two Titans froze suddenly, then stared at him; Cyborg with surprise, Raven with the closest he'd ever seen to shock.

"Yo, man, we're just worried," Cyborg said cautiously, watching him closely. "We don't want your fangs growin' through your lip or something."

"They won't," Beast Boy muttered, almost inaudibly. Raven and Cyborg exchanged glances, before Raven withdrew and Cyborg moved to sit beside Beast Boy.

He waited a long moment before approaching his friend. "BB," he said carefully, "what's bothering you? We're just worried about you, is all. C'mon, grass stain, we just wanna make sure you're okay."

Beast Boy hunched in on himself, drawing his legs up onto the table and wrapping his arms around his knees. "I'm just…" He stopped.

"You're what?" Cyborg asked gently. "Beast Boy, it's _okay_. Really. Whatever it is, it's okay, alright?"

"M'not a pet," Beast Boy muttered into his knees, flinching.

"And I'm not a robot, and Raven's not a witch, but that doesn't mean that I don't pay attention to new viruses or AI software or that Raven doesn't meditate or practice her magic." Cyborg leaned his head back against the wall and continued. "It's okay, Beast Boy. You can come back in now, Rave," he added.

Raven entered the room again and crossed straight to Beast Boy. "Here," she said shortly. "I couldn't find anything better on short notice. I'm sorry."

Beast Boy looked up at that, startled, and groaned when he saw what she was holding.

Part of her bookcase. A stick of wood. He buried his head in his knees again. "No."

"Beast Boy…"

"No. It's humiliating."

Raven sighed and sat down beside him, on his 'free' side. "Sorry, Beast Boy, but I can't find anything better right now. We can go looking together tomorrow, all right? All three of us. We can tell Starfire and Robin we went to….hmmm….we went to the pier, to see if there were any new shops there."

Beast Boy lifted his head again. Raven never sounded like that. She sounded so…concerned and gentle. Maybe they really were just worried about him? "All right," he said finally, holding out his hand and taking the stick of wood from Raven. He started gnawing on it and made a face. Holding it away from him a second, he informed her, "Just so you know, this is _still _humiliating."

Somehow, when Raven's arm came around him hesitantly, it made things so much better.

* * *

**090. Stories**

_Continuity: Anytime_

There are stories everywhere.

Beast Boy knew this, and it was in the way he thought about things, a part of his thought process.

He looked at a bike path and imagined all the people who'd walked or biked or skated along it, goofing off with their friends or cooling off after a fight or just wandering contentedly.

The T-car stopped at a light and he wondered about the other people in the other cars at the same light, where they were coming from, where they were going, whether he'd ever met them or ever would meet them…and then the light would change and they would all continue on, each with their separate stories to tell.

He saw stories in stores, apartment buildings, sidewalks, parks, trees, planes…everywhere. And they all intersected, somehow, some way.

If he stopped to think about it long enough it was fascinating, though really, everything was fascinating if he stopped to think about it long enough. The complications of the circulatory system, the workings of the internet, how someone had come up with the idea for television, the way certain creatures had adapted to certain habitats….absolutely everything had the power to fascinate him. Had the others been able to pick up this trick from him or Starfire- for she saw it too, he was certain of it- they'd likely be a lot happier.

There are stories everywhere. You just have to know how to look.

* * *

**Ninjamuffin13's additions to the List:**  
Under no circumstances are you allowed to put wigs on Cyborg as he  
sleeps.   
Shedding is not justifiable cause for claiming you are going bald.   
You are not to convince Starfire that LEDs and other inedible  
substances are candy, just because she can eat them. 

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** So, several of you have asked/commented on where I get so many ideas for stories. The "Stories" short is my explanation; they're everywhere. For example, one Christmas I frustrated my parents by asking for nothing but this ridiculously detailed description of an ornament...and they found one the match the description. My tea sent me off on a cleaning spree this weekend. The school hamsters need their teeth trimmed. See? Stories.

I am at work on the next chapter of One Which Makes the Heart Run Over. It is currently out for beta and advice. I know I am taking my time, but it is either a longer wait between updates or a poorer quality chapter, and I think we'd all prefer a higher quality chapter later, ne?

...Reviews?


	21. Shameless Self Insertion!

**Disclaimer: **Hey Cyrus- _Bum_p! Yeah, this author note'll eventually make sense to everyone else…kinda. Well, as much sense as it _can_ make anymore. My mother and uncles, some time ago, obtained a set of classic 70s CDs. Me being the clever person I am, I promptly acquired them and made copies, then proceeded to drive my brothers insane. I recently found them again. This is my excuse.

Oh yeah, if you're offended by girls hitting on girls, first of all, grow up, I'm just as human as you are. Second, you might wanna skip the last shot.

The second part of The Great Outdoors can be found in ShinobiCyrus' Five Stories. Go, read it!

* * *

**091. Dreamcatcher**

_Continuity: Anytime_

One of the problems with being an empath in close quarters was that nightmares never infected only _one_ person. No, any time any of the others had a nightmare, Raven's sleep was disturbed as well. Most of the others were "quiet" dreamers, that is, they didn't broadcast their dreams empathically or at least not far enough to interfere with Raven's sleep, but Beast Boy happened to be a very _loud_ dreamer.

This was in her own self-interest, or at least that's what she kept telling herself.

Not that she knew for sure if it would work, it hadn't always for her, but then her circumstances were different. One of the monks who'd raised her had sworn by this.

_"It has to be made either by the person using it or by someone very close to them, preferably someone with some form of magic themselves, and _that's_ when it will work. On Earth they don't, often, but then most of those using them made the mistake of simply _buying_ them." _

Well, she'd never had occasion to try this before, but she really hoped it worked.

"Beast Boy? ….I made you a dreamcatcher."

* * *

**092. House-sitting **

_Continuity: During _The Great Outdoors

Kid Flash leaned against the doorframe and surveyed Jinx's handiwork with a grimace. "Jinx, somehow, I don't see her appreciating this."

Jinx shrugged and adjusted something pink and frilly over the bedside table, absently taking a tack from where she held several in her mouth and tacking up a drawing of a unicorn centered above the bed. She grinned wickedly. "Relax, Kid, I'm just doing them a favor. Girl needs to relax, y'know? Needs some _color_."

He eyed the transformed room cautiously and replied, "Did that color have to be pink?"

Her smile grew, if possible, more wicked. "Of course it did."

"Right….Just remember, I'm the one that can out run her, not you."

They both stepped out and let the door swing shut, revealing the nameplate where _Raven_ had been artfully lacquered over in glittery pink.

"Now, we've just gotta brighten up Bird Boy's room."

* * *

**093. BumpEr Cars!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

_I feel like I'm babysitting._ Cyborg considered that briefly as he lay with his arms crossed behind his head, watching a green crow dart about Raven and mock her with harsh caws. Raven, in turn, executed a neat midair turn and snatched one of his tail-feathers, sending him into a sharp circle before he shifted to a peregrine falcon and shot past her. He turned the dive into a climb and the climb into a dive in turn, trading height for speed and teasing Raven into a race she couldn't hope to win.

They were _supposed_ to be training, but it certainly looked like play to him. Finally they both alighted beside him, clearly tired out, and Beast Boy morphed back to human. He giggled faintly and said, "Hey Raven. Bump!"

She sighed, but smiled. "Er."

"Cars!" he cried, and dissolved into further giggles. Cyborg shook his head.

"I will _never_ understand you two."

* * *

**094. Soundtrack**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Robin looked up as Beast Boy sidled in the door to the common room, case of CDs in hand, and crossed immediately to the sound system hookup. A moment later music boomed through the Tower.

"I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my…"

He was dancing, too, and grinning wildly, and Robin _might _have been entertained enough to let it continue, but black energy outlined the stereo system and sent it flicking to another disc, leaving Beast Boy dancing to something else altogether.

"Turn the beat around, turn it upside down…." Now Beast Boy slid across the room on his knees, throwing his head back as if his hair was long enough to toss and caterwauling loudly, "Make me, make me wanna move my body, yeah!" The stereo shuffled again, somehow conveying a frantic undertone.

Beast Boy segued easily into the next song. "Don't give up on us baby, don't make what's wrong seem right, the future isn't just one night, it's written in the moonlight and painted on the stars…" Another shuffle. Another segue. "….when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" Beast Boy grinned. "Hey, we should make a soundtrack with all these songs!"

One last shuffle before Raven gave it up as a lost cause, and Beast Boy caroled happily, "Everybody was kung fu fighting, those kids were fast as lightning…Hey Rob, this is _totally_ your song!"

…He was going to kill Cyborg for buying those "70's- One Hit Wonders!" CDs. He really was.

That is, if Raven didn't beat him to it.

* * *

**095. Ribbon Chasing**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Starfire finished tying a ribbon onto her left ankle and stood, leaning in a couple different directions, testing the strength of the knot, before leaping lightly into the air and smiling down at Beast Boy.

"Come _on_, Rave!" the shapechanger exclaimed, hopping with impatience and sending the green ribbon attached to his own ankle fluttering about. "It'll be fun!"

"No." Caught up in replying to Beast Boy, Raven didn't react quickly enough when Starfire caught at her ankle and swiftly tied a bit of ribbon to it. Beast Boy became a peregrine falcon and darted into the air, snatching first at Starfire's ribbon and missing as she wheeled sharply, then at Raven's. He got a pretty good chunk of Raven's ribbon before the girl darted away.

"Whoever is the last with a bit of ribbon wins!" Starfire called laughingly, then turned and fled for the clouds. After a moment Raven gave chase.

Every year, for two days, Robin was gone and the remaining team was expected to come up with training exercises in that time. Ribbon-chasing was what Starfire and Beast Boy usually ended up doing for the entire two day span, and this year, with Cyborg in Steel City temporarily, Raven found herself all too willing to join them.

* * *

**096. Anyone Remember What We Were Supposed to Be Doing…?**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Robin sprawled contentedly at the foot of the common room's couch, Starfire massaging his ankles, and waited for Beast Boy to finish changing the records. Somehow, he and Cyborg had gotten their hands on an old record player and a slew of old records, and _somehow_ all plans for the day had wound up on hold while the team sat around listening to said records.

"There…" Beast Boy grinned. "The next 45 is in!"

A second later they were all subjected to the sound of Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Starfire together attempting to sing "These Boots Are Made for Walking." Robin leaned back and sighed, feeling Star's hands tangle in his hair. He never would've thought that he'd be happy to spend an excess of several hours listening to old music in the common room, but he didn't remember the last time he'd been so relaxed.

* * *

**097. On Living Forever…Or Dying in the Attempt**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun, but the stars we could reach were just starfish on the beach…"

Cyborg groaned and straightened, hearing his friend singing on the garage stairs.

"…Goodbye my friend it's hard to die, when all the birds are singing in the sky, now that the spring is in the air, pretty girls are everywhere, think of me and I'll be there…."

"Beast Boy," Cyborg said quietly, "you _know_ the rest of us don't like that song."

Already sprawled in his accustomed position on the stairs, Beast Boy shrugged. "I love this song, it's catchy."

Cyborg set his wrench down and went to sit down next to Beast Boy, the changeling shifting swiftly over to make room. "I don't like to hear you talking about dying, even in a song, all right?"

"But you're missing the point," Beast Boy argued. "For one thing, not hearing it won't make it any less a possibility, not with our lives- and for another, the song isn't _about_ dying, not to me anyway."

"Oh?" Cyborg raised an eyebrow. "'Goodbye my friend it's hard to die?' You have another interpretation?"

"As it happens, yes," Beast Boy replied, agitated. "It's about _not_ dying, about living forever because you've left an impact, even if it's only on a few people close to you. I've left an imprint here, on this Tower and on this team, and you've all changed at least a little for having met me, and so I'll never really die because I'll always be here."

Then he got up and walked away, leaving Cyborg staring after him on the stairs.

* * *

**098. Short Attention Spa- Oh Look A Chicken!**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Short attention spans were awesome.

Why were they awesome? Because he never stayed upset terribly long, because something would inevitably distract him. Eventually he'd remember why he'd been upset again, of course, but his dark moods were constantly broken by something catching his attention.

He glanced in the kitchen, saw Robin poking morosely at his macaroni and cheese, heard him confide to Cyborg, "The more of this I eat, the more disturbed I am by the concept of powdered cheese."

He didn't hear Cyborg's answer, because by then his thought train had run onto what one would add to powdered water, if such a thing as powdered water existed, if he could create powdered water, whether this was how people who came up with strange inventions got started, whether the guy who invented microwaves had been all "hey I'm totally going to make fire in a box!," maybe there was a way to light a fire in a cardboard box without the box burning and he was totally going to get Cyborg to try that, after all he'd gotten Cyborg to go along with him on that shopping trip where they'd done nothing but run up the down escalators and down the up escalators, what was up with those escalators anyway taking the stairs was seriously faster, had people just gotten lazy or what, and anyway any of the Titans could just jump or fly from one level to next, he should totally practice some flight maneuvers the next time they were at the mall, maybe he could finally get Raven to go along with that ribbon-chasing one, and suddenly he was standing in the garage watching Raven make a valiant attempt at meditation and he was whistling the tune to the Andy Griffith Show.

* * *

**099. Shameless Self-Insertion!**

_Continuity: Um…I don't know…_

"Heyla."

Raven glanced up from the cup of tea she'd been nursing, one eyebrow going up, as the greeter slid into the booth across from her. She ran a quick check of her surroundings; three a.m., quiet coffee shop in a backwater part of the city, the only other patrons quiet booksy types and a few late concertgoers- for Raven, a normal nocturnal haunt.

Normally, though, the clients didn't go to any great pains to introduce themselves to each other.

"Raven, right?" the other woman attempted, smiling a little. Raven nodded slowly, observing her a moment- older clothes, not goth, a little closer to street punk or grunge. The dark shirt had _Dragons killed the dinosaurs_ hand-painted on it. Neopagan? Or just odd?

The woman was still speaking. Raven dragged her attention back and noticed the girl was rubbing the back of her head in a nervous gesture, and that two men three tables over were staring at them. Raven's eyes narrowed and she interrupted the girl. "This a bet?"

"No! Well…kinda." The girl shifted uncomfortably. "Zeke and Ari did dare me, but they were joking; I really did want to talk to you. I'm Ashley, by the way, but I go by Ash a lot."

"…Ash."

"Yeah, well…" 'Ash' shrugged. "I like the androgynous thing. Ashley did technically start out as a guy's name, but hardly anyone knows that anymore." She fidgeted again, this time rubbing her left shoulder. The two guys were eyeing them still and Raven sighed.

"Why don't you invite your friends over here, too?"

"What? Oh, no, no! They're okay, they're just a little… overprotective."

Raven stared at her in disbelief, then stared around at her surroundings again. They were overprotective and hanging out in a coffee shop at three in the morning? In _this_ coffee shop, no less?

Ash was still speaking, she noted. "So uh…would you wanna, maybe, catch a movie with me? I mean, it's cool if you don't, I was just…wondering…and all….There are still some places open, I know this great theatre nearby that's showing the new James Bond movie…"

Raven's head swiveled to face her again. Ash turned bright red, squeaked something, and hurried back to Zeke and Ari at her own table.

_Did….she just ask me out?_

Raven was starting to think she needed some new haunts.

* * *

**Kayasuri-n's additions to the List**

_Beast Boy is not allowed to write to the Discovery  
Channel and complain about repeats._

_  
Beast Boy is also not allowed to 'go visit' the studios. Ever. In any  
form._

* * *

**SithKnight-Galen's additions to the List **

_Do not under any circumstances switch the labels of the teas in  
Raven's cupboard to make "Mystery meditiation surprise."_

_Do not enter the tower as anything furry after patrolling the city  
in the rain._

_Do not use the Titans Tower security camera system to record your  
own "Reality Show."_

_As above, do not try selling any said ideas for Reality shows to  
network stations and claiming you can get sequals from affiliate teams;  
Bumblebee and Aqualad were not amused._

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Don't kill me! Heyla, after over 100 shorts, I figured so long as I didn't go all Mary-Sue on everyone…well, it was fun, heh. 

I swear by my dreamcatcher, seriously. I've never had a nightmare in my life and the only difference between my dreamcatcher and those my brothers own is that mine was made by myself and my mother.

I'd explain the _origins_ of the Bumper Cars joke/game if I remembered them, but I don't. Maybe Cyrus does…? Everyone sitting around listening to old records: my family did that one day for so long that we all forget we were supposed to _be_ places. Eventually everyone we were supposed to meet up with figured out where we were, and then they…uh…joined us. Yeah. Music is a huge deal in my family. Beast Boy's little Live Forever speech is the kind of thing I explain to my mother, then cheerfully listen to the shocked silence on the other end of the line while she tries to figure out how the _hell_ I come up with these things.

Songs are, in order of appearance: Right Said Fred's _I'm Too Sexy, _Gloria Estefan's _Turn The Beat Around, _David Soul's _Don't Give Up On Us Baby, _That's Amore, Carl Douglas's _Kung Fu Fighting_, and The Brother's Four _Season in the Sun_. Yeah, I'll listen to just about anything.

…Reviews?


	22. Wanderlust

**Disclaimer:** You know, when someone asks what your goal is, don't answer "to be reincarnated as a dragon in a next life." That answer doesn't go over well. Apparently.

* * *

**100. Night Terrors**

_Continuity: After _Haunted_**  
**_

Robin sighed and propped his head in his hands, staring unseeing across the kitchen. The room was lit only by emergency lights and was wreathed in the same semidarkness he'd been raised in from a young age. The weak light should have been comforting.

Lately, it was anything but.

He wanted nothing more than to turn on all the lights in the kitchen and common room and sit with his eyes closed, rather than to huddle in the dark listening to the electric hum of the refrigerator and trying not to fall asleep. He'd already watched Ellen DeGeneres do an hour and a half of stand-up, played six rounds of Beast Boy's Dance Dance Revolution game, and drank down three cups of Raven's energy boost tea, four glasses of cappuccino, and a truckload of his own black coffee. He'd also written a letter to Batman, though he hadn't sent it since he was fairly certain he'd spent the last page and half rambling, and gone through each of his katas at least once. He was trying to stave off sleep as long as possible after having a particularly vivid nightmare. In fact, had it been any more vivid, he was sure he'd have woken Raven.

"Robin?" He looked up as Starfire wandered sleepily into the common room, yawning and with one arm wrapped around Silkie. He waved to let her know where he was and she came to sit down across from him after depositing Silkie on the couch.

"What is wrong?" Starfire asked him, her concern punctuated by another yawn. Robin shrugged and looked away, knowing the mask would never be adequate to hide anything from Starfire.

"Nightmares," he said finally. "Loud ones, as Raven would call them."

She had moved around to his side of the table and lightly rested her hands on his shoulders. "About Slade?" she asked gently. "Slade, and the shadows, yes?"

He reached up and covered one of her hands with one of his own. "About that, yes."

He felt her shrug and leaned back as she continued, "You should not worry about such things. It is over now, and it cannot now be changed; so, you should cease to worry about it, and focus on that which you _can _change."

* * *

**101. Wanderlust**

_Continuity: After _Lightspeed

Kid Flash didn't even look up as she sat herself down across the tiny campfire from him, though a smile did stretch out over his features briefly.

"So," Jinx said, half an inquiry and half a challenge, "where are we going?"

Now he looked up, and a smile bloomed again. "We'll find that out when we get there, won't we?"

* * *

**102. Run and Live!**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Beast Boy grunted as Raven hit him; he had his balance wrong and had to catch himself before falling. Standing to the side, Robin let out a deep sigh and ordered, "Try again."

They weren't shooting for perfect form, not when it was rare that any of his Titans would find themselves in a position to actually _use_ this training, but damned if they were going to be under his command and not at least have that training to fall back on. He was more focused, though, on making sure they'd be able to stay alive in any situation.

Beast Boy straightened and adjusted his stance, balancing lightly and making a point this time of _not_ tensing up. This time, when Raven came at him, she merely brushed past him as he twisted- just _so_- and caught her arm, turning her attack into his throwing her past him.

"And if she had a knife, or a gun?" Robin asked Beast Boy, who'd relaxed further now that the physical part of the exercise was over.

"Run," the shifter replied promptly. "Run, and find you or one of the others, so we can regroup." Raven was rising slowly behind him, as she and Robin had planned out before beginning this session, but before she could get at him from behind he'd not only pivoted neatly but shifted so that one of the room's support columns stood between them. He'd even managed to angle himself so that while _his_ vision was unobstructed, hers would not be.

"Good," Robin applauded, and without further warning, picked up the nearest object to hand and threw it at Beast Boy. He reacted immediately, throwing out one hand as a shield while identifying the object with a swift glance, keeping his focus primarily on Raven.

As it happened, Robin had thrown a half-empty water bottle, and it deflected neatly back towards him. Robin straightened from a duck as it went sailing over his head and grinned. "I think that's enough for today."

* * *

**103. Freedom's Just Another Word...**

_Continuity: After _Lightspeed

"I have asked you before, and I will ask you again: Where the _hell_ are we going?"

"And I've answered before and will answer again," Kid Flash tossed back impishly over his shoulder. "We'll find out when we get there!"

Jinx sighed and concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other. Wherever they were going, it seemed to involve crossing a lot of difficult terrain, and she had a sneaking suspicion that Kid Flash was lost. Very, very lost.

The fact that she'd seen nothing but scrub brush and, occasionally, stunted trees for the last few days seemed to support that idea. She hadn't known there were places left in this country that were so, well, wild. Kid Flash didn't seem bothered in the least- _of course, he can be to civilization and back in seconds. Why should he be bothered?_

He leapt lightly to a rock mid-stream, and suddenly they weren't following the stream but instead running along it. His footing stayed sure even on the slippery rocks and she matched it confidently.

This was the hallmark of their shared adventure, it seemed; wandering aimlessly. Kid Flash clearly thrived on wandering aimlessly. She had to admit, she was getting pretty fond of the activity herself.

Following him along this road, reminded of steps she'd taken to prevent being tracked in the past, Jinx almost laughed.

In the end, she'd traded one kind of freedom for another, after all.

* * *

**104. On Planning Things Out**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"Do you watch _anything_ on a regular schedule?" Cyborg asked rhetorically, dropping down next to Beast Boy on the couch.

Beast Boy shrugged, eyes glued to whatever cartoon he'd happened to flick on. "I try not to."

"Why is that?" Cyborg asked, genuinely interested, forgetting that his initial query had been rhetorical.

The shifter glanced away from the TV and to his friend. "Because when you start watching something regularly, it's too easy to start putting things off because of it and planning around it, and who wants to plan their life around a TV show?"

* * *

**105. Side Effects**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

It was always…interesting…to see what side effects a new tea might have, not only on Beast Boy-humorous as that tended to be- but on herself.

_This_ tea, for example, gave her some incredibly detailed and strange dreams.

"_Up_, boys, and at them!" She turned in midair to behold a grinning Beast Boy, decked out in full green garb, hovering in the air with a sword for a fraction of a moment before he was engaged in fierce battle with a ship full of pirates. One of them was dressed in a suspiciously red, green, and yellow outfit.

Great. Now her _dreams_ were full of Peter Pan references.

* * *

**106. Troq**

_Continuity: After _Troq

Starfire giggled as a green squirrel sat on her shoulder and pretended to scold her. He looked too much like he was laughing, though, so she was astonished when he abruptly flashed to human and tugged her down into the shelter of a bush with him. He flashed back to human form and put a finger to his mouth, and a moment later she heard what his sharp ears had caught first.

" -little green guy?"

"What, you mean the guy who looks like a freak show reject?"

Starfire felt Beast Boy flinch back farther into the bush. She wrapped one hand around his arm comfortingly.

"Yeah, him. Would you date him?"

"Are you kidding? He's _green_. He turns into animals. How do I know he'd even understand dating? What if he wants to, y'know, mate?"

The girls continued on and out of her hearing range, and eventually Beast Boy's as well, but the damage was already done. Starfire scrambled out from under their meager cover immediately before reaching down and hauling Beast Boy to his feet.

"Do not listen to them," she said fiercely, as he hung limp in her grasp and wouldn't meet her eyes. "Do _not_. You and I, we know better, and so do Raven and Cyborg and Robin!"

His eyes flickered to hers, then away again, and he was looking at the ground when he said quietly, "It isn't anything I haven't heard before, Star."

"But it is not true!" she exclaimed, shaking him slightly. He winced. "It has never, and will never be true, and they should not have said such things, and it is important that you know this!"

He looked up at her again. Still extremely agitated, she drew him into a crushing hug, and he finally relaxed. Clearly _she _didn't care what color he was, no matter what anyone else thought.

"…Thanks, Starfire."

* * *

**107. Health Benefits**

_Continuity: After Season Five_**  
**

Raven eyed the cup of coffee with distrust. Maybe, had she discovered this beverage _before_ her tea, she would have been just as enamored of (and addicted to) it as Robin was….but the fact remained that she had been drinking tea long before being introduced to coffee.

Coffee always seemed somewhat… unhealthy to her.

It seemed a lot more unhealthy for Beast Boy, though, when a green tail abruptly yanked the cup from her grasp and she looked up to see a lemur contentedly sucking down the coffee.

* * *

**destiny'sholder's additions to the List**

Do not tell Starfire that when cooking salt works better then sugar, especially when she is helping Raven with her tea...

* * *

**Agent of the Divine One's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not allowed to re-enact Godzilla movies inside the Tower.

Beast Boy is not allowed to re-enact Godzilla movies outside the tower either.

Beast Boy is not allowed to impersonate the Jolly Green Giant in Grocery stores.

Beast Boy is not allowed to impersonate Swamp Thing, especially when he is near Beach Front property.

* * *

**Lizai's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not allowed to teach Starfire swear words and convince her that they're friendly greetings.

* * *

**roniloveu's additions to the List**

Do not "borrow" Cyborg's video equipment, make a video, and send it to ABC to get an extreme home makeover so that you can have a zoo attached to the tower.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** You know, I'm going to have fun basing shorts on a lot of these additions. I get lost all the time- on purpose. I tend to tell people I drag with me that we'll find out where we're going when we get there. Well, we do! Find some really cool places that way, too. 

My parents base their schedules around Survivor, American Idol, and 24. This drives me _insane._ I won't watch any of these shows, I used to go to talk to Cy's mother instead.

I have such horrible wanderlust.

...Reviews?


	23. Happy Valentine's Day!

**Disclaimer:** I got an awesome fuzzy green scarf thing in the mail for Valentine's Day and vicious tug-of-war with Onyx immediately commenced. That is honestly where this whole thing came from.

Also! Announcement! If anyone would like to draw fanart for either this or One Which Makes The Heart Run Over, you earn a Whitewater-request-short! I'd do it myself but, everything I draw mysteriously grows wings, scales, and claws.

Look! Fluff! Heh.

* * *

**108. Fuzzy Scarf Thing!**

_Continutity: After Season Five_

"Beast Boy! Give back my fuzzy scarf thing!"

The green dog growled and wiggled playfully, tugging with tiny canines at the fuzzy green scarf.

"C'mon, go buy one yourself if you want one so bad!"

The poorly-concealed giggles from the side were _not_ helping. "Starfire, _help_!" Robin beseeched her. "Make'im let go of it! Tell him you got him one too, or something!"

"But I did not," Starfire said, smiling innocently. "However…" The puppy sat back on its haunches and looked up at her, tilting his head, one ear flopping over his eyes. He barked inquisitively and Starfire's smile grew wider.

"_Raven_ did."

Raven sighed as she stepped out from behind Starfire, a remarkably fuzzy purple scarf draped over her hands. She shortly had an armful of excited, wriggling green puppy.

"Beast Boy, it's just a scarf!"

He popped back to human, still in her arms, and grinned at her. "No, it's a crazy purple fuzzy scarf thing!"

* * *

**109. Happy Valentine's Day!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Beast Boy groaned loudly from where he was sprawled on the common room floor. Raven idly toed his side from where she was reading on the couch and was rewarded with a hiss.

"Rave, I don't feel good."

"That would be because you consumed more chocolate than Cyborg, Robin, and Starfire _combined_."

He grinned up at her and caught her foot when she tried to toe him in the side again. "It was Valentine's Day candy. Who can pass up Valentine's Day candy?" Then he turned into a kitten and batted at her socks, claws catching periodically in the thick fabric. Once they sunk a bit too far and she really _did_ kick him.

He shifted back again and winced. "That hurt!"

"Stop attacking my foot."

He pouted. "I'm…trying to thank you for the Valentine's Day candy?"

She rolled her eyes and turned the page. If he'd been paying more attention, he'd have realized this was the first time she'd turned any pages in the last twenty minutes.

"Try again, Beast Boy."

"But it's the truth!" he wailed, and turning back into a kitten, leapt onto the couch and curled up beside her. She rolled her eyes again, but this time, she let him. She didn't bother making him move when his head and front paws crept onto one of her crossed legs, either.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Beast Boy."

A sleepy _mreowr _was her only answer.

* * *

**110. Strawberries!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

It was inevitable, probably. Eventually Starfire was going to find some earthly food she fell in love with. Well, besides the mustard.

But listening to the discussion this had prompted, Cyborg was having a lot of trouble stifling his laughter.

Starfire had fallen in love with strawberries and all things strawberry flavored. She absolutely loved them. Strawberry waffles, strawberry crepes, strawberry frappucino, strawberry pocky, strawberry ice cream…she would happily have made a meal simply of strawberries (and probably had, more than once).

Somehow, however, she and Beast Boy had gotten from the subject of strawberries- he was very fond of them as well- to that of cherries. Starfire liked cherries as she liked anything remotely edible and a few things that weren't. Beast Boy hated cherries with a passion.

What Cyborg found funny was that Robin and Raven had been having an unrelated discussion about what certain slang phrases meant and why one should be careful about saying phrases which included the word cherry, especially around teenage boys. The two conversations had met when Starfire had innocently confided in Robin that Beast Boy did, indeed, truly hate cherries and appeared able to go on at great length about why.

The expression Robin and Raven now shared was priceless.

* * *

**111. Wishing Well**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Raven, wanna know what I'd wish for if I found a genie?"

"No."

"Well first of all, I'd wish for a pouch of money which _always_ had the exact amount we need."

"I said _no, _Beast Boy."

"And then I'd wish for a knapsack that'd always have whatever food we were hungry for in it."

"…Where is this 'we' coming from?"

"And finally I'd wish that the T-car would never, ever run out of gas."

"Beast Boy?"

"Yeah?"

Raven sighed, opened her eyes, and settled lightly o

n the ground beside him, her meditative trance long since broken. She leaned into him and closed her eyes, hiding her smile when his arm came very hesitantly around her.

"I wish you'd shut up."

* * *

**112. Pink Panther**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

He wouldn't stop laughing.

"Cyborg, shut up already!"

Bent double, tears running down his face, Cyborg waved a hand at him and kept laughing. Beast Boy pouted. "It isn't funny. all right? It _isn't funny_!"

"Bwahahaha!"

Apparently Cyborg disagreed.

Beast Boy crossed his arms and glared, pink dye dripping off the tip of his drooping ear. Cyborg took one look at him and went off into a renewed round of laughter. Beast Boy decided to teach his friend a lesson.

Maybe turning into a panther hadn't been the best choice, he thought glumly, as Cyborg choked out "Pink panther!" and commenced rolling on the floor. "That…that'll teach you to mess with… the shampoo bottles, grass stain!"

* * *

**Kayasuri-n's additions to the List**

If Beast Boy must sing, it should not be at three in the morning. Beast Boy is not to trade Cyborg's car wax with turkey grease.

Beast Boy is not to fill empty shampoo bottles with turkey grease.

Beast Boy is not going to fill empty shampoo bottles with anything other then shampoo again if he wishes to live.

* * *

**Agent of the Divine One's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not allowed to rig the horn of the T-Car to play P. I. M P.

Beast Boy is not allowed to use Silkie to clean out the fridge. Even mutant worms get indigestion.

Beast Boy is not allowed to wake everyone in the tower by playin "Reveille" with his armpit into the comm. system microphone.

* * *

**Sith-Knight Galen's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not to re-create episodes of american chopper using the R-Cycle.

Likewise, Beast Boy is not to even think of trying anything he sees on TV on the T-Car.

Beast Boy is not a temple guardian or a dragon, and does not know where sheng-wu are, so stop trying to convince little kids that you are.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **See what you've done, Cyrus, Kayasuri? Yeah, the pink panther short is your fault. Both of you! Heh.

I love strawberries. Hate cherries. There was an incident over break where mine and Lev's conversation spilled over into the neighboring conversation and caused Bolt to nearly die of laughter.

...Reviews?

* * *

2/11/07: Edited to give proper List credit. Dammit, I_ knew_ I was going to screw that up sooner or later. 


	24. Of Love and Earning Kisses

**Disclaimer:** Dammit, I don't have my Valentine's Day buddies to wander through the deserted malls with. Cy, fly on out here now! Make it before midnight so we can continue our odd traditions! YOU CAN DO IT CYRUS!

...heh. I'm having fun today.

* * *

**113. Scarf Man!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Cyborg's voice was warm and richly amused. "Beast Boy?"

Beast Boy's voice was muffled. "Yeah?"

"…What are you doing?"

A grinning green head poked suddenly out of a mass of fluffy purple scarf. He was on the garage stairs and had discovered his "Raven-scarf,' as he'd happily dubbed it, was…well….hollow-ish. It had a sort of runnel down the middle, where the vast majority of his body was currently ensconced. "I'm Scarf Man!"

Cyborg leaned against the T-car and laughed until tears were running down his face.

* * *

**114. Earning Kisses**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Soooo….how come there isn't a Valentine's Day tradition like mistletoe? Like, I dunno, you have to kiss anyone who gives you a Valentine?"

Raven set down her book, knowing she wasn't going to retain her concentration, and sighed. "There is a tradition, Beast Boy. A tradition of kissing your sweetheart and giving him or her a kiss."

He leaned back, propping his feet on the couch cushions, crossing his arms behind his head and staring far too innocently up at her. "Yeah, but there should be a tradition like the mistletoe tradition. Catch someone under the mistletoe and earn a kiss, catch someone out with a Valentine and earn a kiss."

She rolled her eyes and lifted her book again. "Fine, Beast Boy, you go knock yourself out 'catching people out' with Valentines."

A morbid instinct made her look up an instant later, for his grinning face to fill her vision as a drooping paper heart of pink and purple dangled from his outstretched hand.

* * *

**115. ** **Blame it on the Lights**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Ashley….no. Lauren….no. Zachary…no. Hell, Marie and Mark is what I'd like...twins! twins would be _awesome_…."

"Now what are you doing?" Raven sighed. Beast Boy rolled over where he was stretched out on the floor.

"I'm uh…coming up with names for kids?" He smiled sheepishly.

"Please. One of you is _more_ than enough."

It was something in the way she said it, or maybe in the way she looked at him as the words fell from her lips, or maybe it was even just the way the light picked out the highlights in her hair.

He leaned in and kissed her.

Then he fled.

* * *

**116. How to make Robin unwind**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Robin walked into the kitchen in a daze. Cyborg and Beast Boy looked up sharply from a highly competitive game of Sudoku (they had found a way). Cyborg's eyebrows went up at the look on his leader's face.

"Uh, Rob?"

Robin turned toward them very, very slowly, almost as if he was moving in a dream. Somewhat jerkily he said, "Beast Boy?"

"Yeah?"

"Did… you convince Star that it's a tradition to kiss anyone who gives you a Valentine?"

Beast Boy grinned and puffed his chest out proudly. "I sure did!"

"Training is cancelled today," Robin said in that same floaty voice, and drifted back out of the kitchen.

* * *

**117. Only the Wind**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Jinx leaned back against the tree and sighed deeply, inhaling the fresh air. Kid Flash had this absolute obsession for wandering and so they hadn't stayed with the main core of the Titans long- that, and Jinx was still a little weirded out herself by her apparent switch to the light side, so she didn't see how Raven and her teammates could have adjusted to it yet.

Still, she only traveled with Kid Flash part of the time. Most of the time she spent striking out on her own, and a lot of that time she spent in exploring the forests near Jump City. She couldn't quite bring herself to leave the vicinity of the city on a permanent basis yet, it had been home for so long now. There were some especially interesting caves out here…..

Her eyes opened wide and her heart pounded when another pair of lips met hers for a split second.

But all she saw was the foliage bending, following the swift wind that had passed through.

* * *

**Aeta Aella's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not allowed to hold Raven's hands and crack jokes about "a bird in the hand."

Beast Boy is not allowed to tel Starfire that the first person she kisses on earth is the one she must wed.

Beast Boy is not allowed to roleplay. Ever.

Beast Boy is not allowed to get free transcripts of shows like "The Maury Show" or "Jerry Springer" and speak in quotes from it all day.

* * *

**Angel'sInnocence's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not allowed to paint Raven's room pink for Valentine's Day, EVER!

Beast Boy is not allowed to convince Starfire that he is going to take over the world in three days and everyone must by him presents.

Beast Boy is not allowed to use Silkie as a vaccuum either. It has the reverse effect of CLEANING.

Beast Boy is not allowed to sing 'I'm to Sexy' at ANY time. Starfire still wants to know what 'sexy' is.

Beast Boy is not allowed to make comments like 'Sexy' to Starfire and then go ask Robin to explain them. One day, his head WILL explode.

* * *

**-Perfect-Witch-x-'s additions to the List**

Just because we have a theme tune doesn't mean you should replace the alarm with it, Starfire now shoots starbolts when she hears it as a ringtone.

Cyborg gave you that digital camera to take family-friendly photo's with. Wanting to see what your behind looks like but then forgetting and  
lending it to Raven is a recipe for disaster.

We know you like reading the Fanfiction site Beastboy, but that does not mean you can e-mail Robin stories of him and Slade. Scarier than the thought you read them is the fact Robin tried burning down his bedroom thinking he'd got amnesia and it actually happened.

Same with pictures from your Sims 2 game.

* * *

**Agent of the Divine One's additions to the List**

Beast Boy is not allowed to re-enact scenes from Top Gun with the T-Ship.

Beast Boy is noe allowed to switch Robin's hair gel with Honey. Although it is hilarious to see Silkie try and eat Robin's hair. :)

Beast Boy is never to switch Cyborg's power cell with a baked potato.

Beast Boy is not allowed to recruit Thunder and Lightning to save money on a horror film he is making.

* * *

**WiccaGem18536's additions to the List**

BeastBoy's ability to resemble an elf does not give him the right to sneak into ANY Santa's grotto's at ANY time during the holidays. Ever.

Taking Robin to Santa's elf auditions is inaccurate and cruel.

Taking Robin to gay pride marches, even if his expression is the funniest thing you've ever seen, is also cruel.

Starfire + sugar BeastBoy - consciousness, whether it was his idea originally or not.

Cyborg does not have a compartment for popcorn and/or soda. Don't search for one.

Robin is not gay. Deal with it.

You are not Peter Pan. Even thinking that you are constitutes a banning of all related films in the tomer. Raven WILL be checking.

Smuggling or even so much as looking at objects banned from the tower will be reacted to. Searching your room for said items is a good idea. Hell, clean your room while you're there. Or the men with the HazMat suits will be sent in.

Mistletoe is and will forever be banned from the tower. Signed petitions against this ban will not be accepted. Even if you persuade Raven to  
sign.

* * *

**NIGHTSTALKER's additions to the List**

The T-Car is NOT the General Lee. Therefore do not attempt to slide across the hood or get in through the windows.

The Titans will not change their team name to "The Eggmen" so you can be the Walrus. Koo koo kachoo.

Nor are you allowed to transform into an octopus when the radio plays "Octopus' Garden".

And no, you are not turning Japanese. We really think so.

* * *

**IronRaven's additions to the List**

Beast Boy shall not buy text books online. Especially chemistry ones from the 20s and 30s, back when they had stink bomb recipes in them.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** I love the song "Octopus' Garden," by the way. Am I alone in this? Because I get yelled at for singing it. 

Don't know how many of you know what I'm talking about with the scarf, but they're frigging hollow. So cool. That was a homage to PantsMan! PantsMan is a fun childhood memory of mine and not even Cyrus knows what I'm talking about. Heh.

Aeta Aella has gotten me interested in the Kid Flash/Jinx pairing. It's surprisingly entertaining.

You know, the irony is Raven almost certainly knows V-day's origins as a fertility festival.

...Reviews? It's Valentine's Day. Leave a review-valentine!


	25. Musical Mayhem

**Disclaimer:** I went to see Eragon. That movie could have had the worst acting in the world and a single set and I'd still have loved it. _Dragon!_

**What's currently going on with the Beast Boy List:**

Since I've been flooded with suggestions, and what is hilarious to one person may not be funny to the next, Cyrus and I have split up the List additions and will each be putting up a List chapter within the next few days. If your suggestion is not in the next chapter of Whitewater, check the next chapter of Five Stories.

...End announcement.

* * *

**001.4 Apartment Living**

_Continuity: After _Go!**  
**

Beast Boy groaned and pulled the pillow tighter over his ears. Passing through to the kitchen, Raven paused in the doorway and watched him a moment. She didn't mind apartment living, herself, and found that it was a slight comfort to hear other people moving around in the building and know that she wasn't alone here.

She hadn't considered what the noise must be like for his sensitive hearing, though.

Not really knowing what to do, Raven didn't think of it again until a few days later, when the stereo showed up. He'd scrounged it from a garage sale along with three cassettes, for about fifteen dollars, and it sort of kind of sometimes worked- and he used it to drown out the neighbors.

The twelfth time she had to listen to the Footloose soundtrack, she just about lost it.

* * *

**118. The Great Outdoors III**

_What happened to part II? Check ShinobiCyrus' Five Stories._

Raven leaned back on the cooler, propping her head on her hands and watching her teammates cavort around the fire. Beside her on the cooler, Robin shifted uncomfortably, feeling like he wanted to go join in.

"She thinks my tractor's sex-y!" Beast Boy sang loudly, dancing around and at one point through the dying flames. Raven did not want to know how he knew that song. Ever.

Starfire grinned and gently flicked her friend's ears. Beast Boy grinned back at her and sang, "She thinks my _ears_ are sex-y!"

"This should have been the worst weekend ever," Robin mused, shifting around again. "It's poured rain the whole time, our tent flooded, the _fords_ flooded, Beast Boy left the matches in the rain, no one's gotten a full night's sleep the whole time…so why does it feel like we're in a bubble of space where time stopped?"

Raven thought back to the previous night- most of which she had spent waking, crawling up the tent, falling asleep, and repeating that same process an hour later, because the tent had been unfortunately pitched on a hill- and found she agreed with Robin. Somehow, what should have been a horrible weekend had instead become one of the most enjoyable experiences she'd ever had.

And on the plus side, they had all learned how to start a roaring fire using paper plates and the explosions from Robin's birdarangs.

* * *

**119. Jinxed  
**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Robin was faced with a problem.

It had taken a bit to clear out all the honorary Titans after their fight with the Brotherhood of Evil, but clear them out they had, since after all most of them had other homes to go to.

Most of them.

But Jinx had defected from her home to join in the battle, and he was now stuck with finding the sorceress a place to stay. "Where were you staying before you met up with us in Paris?" Robin asked finally.

Jinx shrugged, leaning back against the kitchen table. "After I left the Hive Five? Wherever happened to be warm, dry, and nearby. I was wandering the countryside with Kid Flash, we didn't exactly have a set place."

Robin rubbed at his forehead, feeling a headache coming on. "So…now what?" he asked finally.

Jinx pushed herself off the table and stretched out. "How about a deal: when the weather's good, I find a place myself. Otherwise, I crash in the Tower here, during storms or whatever. I _know_ you have empty rooms around, this place is huge."

Later, Robin would wonder how she had _ever_ talked him into that deal.

* * *

**120. Redneck Dance Contest!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from, Cotton Eye Joe!"

Raven leaned back against the T-car and closed her eyes, felt the wind whip through her hair and listened to her friends. Robin was in a meeting with the Mayor, and Cyborg had decided the day was too good to waste.

So somehow she was out in the countryside with her teammates, along with Bumblebee who Cyborg had apparently invited along, and Cyborg had pulled over because he'd seen someone walking on the verge of the road. It turned out to be Kid Flash and Jinx, and…she was unclear what had happened next, but Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, Bumblebee, Jinx, and Kid Flash were all now in a "Redneck Dance Contest" to the music blasting from the T-car's sound system.

"I'd a been married long time ago, if it hadn't been for Cotton Eye Joe!"

She opened her eyes again and saw that Bumblebee and Cyborg had linked arms, Kid Flash and Jinx had linked arms, and Beast Boy was holding out his arm to her with a stupid grin on his face. Sighing, she let herself be pulled into a square dance.

* * *

**121. Deep Dive**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Aqualad dove deeper, following the pod of dolphins. Beast Boy was pacing him in the form of a bottlenose himself. The Atlantian wondered why exactly it was Beast Boy would do this occasionally, page him at odd times and meet him out in the ocean, but he had a suspicion it was just that his friend needed the escape.

And really, he could understand very well himself the allure that diving deeper and deeper and seeing what fascinating things lay at the bottom of the sea held. It wasn't that surprising after all that Beast Boy would share that wonder.

* * *

**122. Wanderlust, Branded Deeper than the Bone**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Jinx inhaled the cold, clean air and smiled. She looked to the sun; barely past noon, which meant she had plenty of time before she needed to start looking for somewhere to sleep. She wouldn't have thought she'd have enjoyed this, wandering around in the hills and forests and occasionally the city itself, but the freedom of the Hive Five paled in comparison.

She still had some of the food Kid Flash had brought with the last time she'd seen him, as well as some of what she'd scrounged from the Tower the last time she'd dropped by. She also had some very good homemade bread Beast Boy had swapped her for a can of paint and a few other oddities. This was as good a place as any to rest, and she settled down to eat with her back against a tree.

As she was setting out her lunch, a voice sang out from somewhere nearby, "I'm an outcast, riding into town alone!"

Laughing, she sang back, "I've got wanderlust, branded deeper than the bone!" Kid Flash appeared beside her with a grin. "Drama queen," she teased him.

* * *

**123. This Was Not What I Expected**

_Continuity: After _Fear Itself

Cyborg stared.

He wasn't sure what exactly he had expected when the Tower had turned into something out of a horror movie, but it definitely hadn't been this.

Robin was arm-wrestling Brave.

Starfire and Happy were taking turns braiding each other's hair.

Beast Boy, Timid, and a purple-cloaked emotion were playing poker. Beast Boy waved and Cyborg sat down beside him with a vague feeling of doom.

"She says we're probably not gonna remember this," Beast Boy said, gesturing vaguely at the purple Raven, "but hey, isn't it cool?"

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Well...didn't _you_ wonder where they went? Redneck Dance Contest was way fun, we had a station wagon and a cop slowed down to see what madness we were up to, took one look, and sped up and fled. Personally, I love apartment living, but I also don't sleep in my bedroom. Or anywhere near a shared wall. 

Songs used are, in order: _She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy_ by Kenny Chesney, _Cotton Eye Joe _by Rednex, and Megadeth's _Wanderlust. _Yeah, my old coworkers got me listening to country. Blame them.

...Reviews?

And by the way: List additions are great, but please don't _replace_ reviews with them. Say _something _about the story.


	26. As a General Rule

**Disclaimer:** And here is the List chapter! Cyrus' Beast Boy List chapter of Five Stories should have gone up at the same time, so check over there if you don't see your addition(s) here. This...was _far_ more fun than it should have been. No numbering system in this chapter, because I'm way too lazy to go through and number the List.

* * *

**The Beast Boy List**

* * *

**Protector of Canon2's addition to the List**

_General rule: If you think it's funny, DON'T DO IT!_

* * *

**SithKnight-Galen's additions to the List**

_Beast boy is not allowed access to Random Name generators. The Titans already have sufficient _

_codenames._

"Hey Rae, your pirate name is Cap'n Angelina Redbeard!"

Thirty seconds later saw Beast swathed in dark energy and dangling from the ceiling. Not the least bit deterred, he called after her, "I'm Smilin' Bryan Blythe!"

A dark gag swiftly joined the bonds.

_On the same token, please stop using the T-Coms to give the Titans new codenames._

"Khhkk, Lean Green Fightin' Machine to Birdbrain and Metallica, come in!"

A thrown communicator thwacked him on the head.

* * *

**Gogglehead Lover's additions to the List**

_Donot convince Starfire that every third Tuesday of the month is_

_  
"Sing your cultural songs" Day._

"I think my ears are bleeding…" Robin whimpered, attempting to find somewhere to hide. Raven, Beast Boy and Cyborg had already taken the good hiding spot; they were all camped out in Beast Boy's room. Even Starfire in a multicultural frenzy wouldn't be going in there.

_Beast Boy is NOT, under any circumstances, allowed to take pictures of the rest of the team on bad hair days, turn the pictures into_

_ calendars, and sell them. Last year's are still being searched for and burned. _

Cyborg stared at the calendar, half horrified, half impressed. "How did Robin's hair even _do_ that?"

Beast Boy shrugged. "I switched his and Starfire's shampoo. It worked better'n I thought it would!"

* * *

**WiccaGem18536's additions to the List**

_Trapping other people in your scarf and dragging them around the Tower kicking and screaming is not funny. Especially if its Raven._

"Grass stain, you are so dead when she gets loose…"

A dark raven shot through the scarf and a moment later Beast Boy was staring black-energy-wreathed doom in the face.

_Any songs with the words "sexy", or any variation therein are not _

_viable new theme tunes for the team._

"We're too sexy for our theme song, too sexy for our theme song-!"

"For the last time Beast Boy, no, it does _not _work!"

_We are not the Ghostbusters. End of discussion._

"Beast Boy, you said we were going on a call." Raven felt her eyebrow twitch, a little bit spastically, as she stared at the graveyard stretching out before her.

"We are," he said brightly, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. "Some kids called in and said there were ghosts here!"

"It wasn't funny the first time," Raven growled, "and _it isn't funny now!_"

_Nobody thinks you understand this yet: Raven Is Allergic To Chickens. Do _

_NOT turn into them near her if you want to live._

Cyborg stared at the wreckage of the living room. "What happened?"

"Beast Boy gave Raven an allergy attack," Robin sighed, "and apparently if her allergies are bad enough she has the same issues controlling her powers that Star does when she sneezes."

_Robin does not appreciate your idea to teach Starfire slang. Or swearwords. Or recipes for goo. _

_In fact, don't ever talk to her ever again if you can help it._

Robin poked cautiously at his breakfast. "Uh…Starfire? What did you say this was, again?"

She beamed at him. "It is a most wonderful recipe for eggplant Jell-o that Beast Boy taught me!"

_When Cyborg told you Raven liked being buried in Valentines chocolate, he was LYING._

Cyborg couldn't stop laughing. He held a camera in his shaking hands and managed to snap several pictures of a peeved-looking Raven buried in a mound of heart-shaped boxes before said boxes started hitting their changeling on the head with a good deal of accuracy. Quite a few of them hit Cyborg as well, for that matter.

_When you're told to stop, you stop whatever you're doing. You don't: laugh uproariously, _

_slam the door, and continue. It's not funny. No, really, it isn't._

"What's he doing now?" Robin sighed. He was holding a cup of coffee and his hair was sticking up wildly in several directions. "Why is he even _awake_ at five in the morning?"

Cyborg shrugged. "I don't think he went to sleep. As for what he's doing, as near as I can tell, he convinced Starfire to help him kidnap Raven and do something to her hair. Something about an up-do."

Robin eyed the door and edged backwards slightly. "I suggest we get out of here before something blows up."

* * *

**Tammy Tamborine's addition to the List**

_Seeing foreign exchange students from Russia is NOT a good reason_

_ to sing 'Rah Rah Rasputin' at the top of your lungs._

"Rah, Rah, Rasputin, lover of the Russian queen! Rah, Rah, Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine!"

As Raven and Cyborg each caught an arm and dragged him away, Raven wondered when exactly the two of them had been appointed to baby-sit him. "Beast Boy, that is _not_ the way to handle foreign relations."

* * *

**Snea's additions to the List**

_Beast Boy is not allowed to play a tuba in the Tower._

"Whoever gave him that thing is banned from the Tower!"

Cyborg groaned. "I think it was Jinx…"

_Especially if he doesn't know how._

"Couldn't she at least have gotten him some kind of lessons?"

"Somehow, I really doubt she knows how to play the tuba. Actually I'm inclined to think this was what she intended in the first place."

_And especially not when it's three in the morning._

Robin made his tired way into the holding cell and beheld Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven, all asleep safely within the soundproof walls.

_Beast Boy is not allowed to paint the main room pink and claim that _

_Cupid redecorated._

"…And where did he get the paint?"

Cyborg groaned. "Jinx stopped by again last night…she said she was looking for Kid Flash."

"When did she and Beast Boy become friends?" Robin asked, aggravated. "And why didn't anyone think to _prevent_ it?"

_Beast Boy can no longer pass out Valentines in the park. Ever._

Cyborg stared. "I think he got the 'kiss everyone who gives you a Valentine' thing to catch on."

Robin blinked as Starfire happily kissed Beast Boy on the cheek, then rose a bit jerkily from where he was seating. "And I think I'm joining him."

* * *

**Stars lil girl's additions to the List**

_While watching The Lion King Beast Boy is not allowed to roar with the lions, _

_especially if Raven is asleep._

Beast Boy's tufted tail swished lazily behind him as he crouched on the couch, eyes trained on the screen. Simba sucked at roaring, he thought caustically. In fact…he'd bet he could do better!

The little green lion cub sprang to his feet and roared, startling Raven from where she'd fallen asleep beside him on the couch, and Robin and Starfire from where they were resting on the floor. Starfire almost hit him with a starbolt.

* * *

**Bhill62's additions to the List**

_Beast Boy is not allowed to say "Holy concrete Robin, it's Cinderblock." or "Holy David Copperfield Batman it's Mumbo," or_

_ anything of that nature in battle. Robin is not too proud of his past, and would like to forget that particular time. (Plus he likes to _

_look manly in front of Starfire and that doesn't help.)_

"It looks bad, Batman! This brassy bird has us buffaloed!"

Beast Boy's joking comment had at least one positive effect: It left Mumbo laughing too hard to attack.

_Beast Boy is not allowed to call Mas y Menos or Kid Flash, just so they can pick up authentic Chinese or_

_ Italian, from Italy or China._

"This's really good," Cyborg said through a mouthful of chicken. "Where'd you get it?" He didn't mind Kid Flash and Jinx coming to visit if they brought food like this. And not, y'know, pink paint. Or snakes. Or snakes _and_ pink paint. That had been a terrifying experience for all involved.

"China," Kid Flash replied, as Beast Boy looked up from his rice and grinned.

_Beast Boy is to refrain from calling Red Star "comrade." _

_ You're not Russian Beast Boy._

"So, comrade, how _did_ you get back here anyway?" Beast Boy asked curiously.

Raven smacked him on principle.

* * *

**Nightw0lf's additions to the List**

_Beast Boy is not allowed to paint himself orange, say he's an Oompa _

_Loompa, and make up songs about the others._

"Robin needs to learn to relax, before he has another relapse, to an anxiety attack, oompa loompa doopity doo!"

Robin shot a glare at the pink-haired sorceress lounging on the couch with her hands behind her head, smiling innocently. "What is it, exactly, that makes you give him these ideas?"

Jinx shrugged. "It's funny?"

_Beast Boy is not allowed to tell Starfire that Robin has a stick up his butt._

"Oh, but that must be painful! We must remove it immediately! Cyborg, will you assist me?"

_Cyborg is not Morpheus and Robin is not The One._

"Will you take the red pill, or the blue pill?"

Robin stared at Beast Boy. "Is that Starfire's cooking?"

Beast Boy shrugged. "Yeah. Don't ask me how she managed red and blue pills, though, it was a noodle recipe. Now…will you take the red pill, or the blue pill?"

Robin rolled his eyes and walked away.

_You are not allowed to become a shark near populated beaches in _

_order to get a good spot._

Cyborg stood on the beach, towel in one hand, and watched as it swiftly became deserted. He grinned.

"And what do you two plan to do if anyone ever notices that shark is green? Raven asked dryly.

Cyborg shrugged. "Call Aqualad?"

_You are not to paint flames on Cyborg while he's charging._

"They'll uh…make you go faster?" Beast Boy tried sheepishly. Cyborg's glare did not diminish.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** Coming up with shots for these was fun. Again, if you don't see something, check Five Stories. 

Oh, and the brassy bird thing? I did not make that up. It's an actual Robin quote from the 1966 Batman film. You cannot make this up.

...Reviews? Although, most of this chapter is all your suggestions, heh. Or...go back and review last chapter, if you haven't.


	27. Cages Made of Glass

**Disclaimer: **Well. I've been getting my butt kicked to the curb and back by my Anatomy Lab class and entertaining myself by flooding the Million Pages Thread on Gaia with Batman quotes. Somehow in all this, you got a full-chapter chapter, the first since back in chapter...3, I think...since Tag. Now..I have to go study...

* * *

**124. Cages Made of Glass**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

If anyone, someone, one person in the faceless thousands lining the crosswalks and boarding buses and buying coffee at eight am to try and make it through their agonizing five-hour-long board meeting- if any one of these persons had stopped, just for a second, just for a moment- had stopped, and had seen her, the little pink-haired sorceress looking out of place in the streets of this city, looking out of place in _daylight_, and had asked her- "What's the one thing, the one thing that makes you _you_, that you could never do without?"- she'd have known exactly how to answer them.

And her answer would almost certainly have surprised them. Why? Because she would've discounted her powers. She wouldn't _like _to be without them but she _could_ be. No, what she relied on, what she counted on, was something more substantial, something more mundane: She _knew_ things.

She knew how to walk with a confident swagger that made pickpockets and prospective assailants think twice. She knew how to look like she knew exactly where she was going and like she was expected to be there at exactly a certain time, though really, it had been years since either was true. She knew which alleys were safe passages, which housed thieves and murderers, which had others who were homeless and willing to share food. Because she was homeless, now, and she knew that intimately. Even had she felt comfortable herself in asking the Titans to stay on permanently….Robin and Raven had not been trusting to begin with, and after Terra, they were inclined to be even less so. Starfire and Beast Boy had trusting natures, and she was a special case with Cyborg, but….Those five were a family already, a close-knit family clinging desperately to each other without ever really realizing it. She would forever be an outsider there. An outsider, and an interloper, and whatever lay in their pasts where they had intertwined she _didn't_ want to be the one to come in and tear apart that delicate balance they didn't even know they had.

She would forever be an outsider, period, exclamation point, whatever punctuation you please so long as it was final. No semicolons or question marks here, please. She was a bad-luck witch, a walking jinx with pink hair and cat-slit eyes- she knew if she ever wanted a place she'd have to dig and dig and dig and dig until she'd scratched one out for herself, scratched herself a tiny niche out of bare rock and shale, and even then she'd have to fear the wind's erosion.

She lifted her head, closed her eyes, inhaled deeply. The pine-tinged air filled her senses, the cold clear air that was so vastly different from the stale air of the HIVE. The HIVE had hardly been a home either, for all that she'd had the security of four walls and a roof.

She walked a little farther, vaulted the fallen tree that marked the path she wanted, studied the trail. She _knew_ things. She knew how to woods-track, now, for she'd asked Beast Boy to teach her- the direction her life had inexplicably taken did not lend itself to easy food, and hunting had swiftly become a top priority. He'd been with her when she'd made her first kill, skinned and cooked her first rabbit, and he met her up here sometimes still. She didn't eat around him anymore, not when she had to deal with his reproachful eyes on her the entire time, but he knew she hunted this area periodically. Truth be told, she was inclined to think he had some hideaway of his own out here, because she saw him far too often and far too late in this same area for things to add up otherwise.

"Hey." Aaaand there he was now, ladies and gents, anyone desperate enough or stupid enough or crazy enough to be in her head listening to her rambling circling thoughts. There was the green-skinned boy with the ready smile and the shuttered-window eyes. Jinx knew things, and she knew from the look in his eyes that she'd seen so many damned times before that there was hurt hiding there. "Whatcha doin'?"

And she knew things, but she didn't know why she said what she did next. "I'm scratching at the surface. I'm scratching and scratching and scratching, but all there is, is rock."

He landed beside her on the game-trail, barely making a noise, moving like he was born to the woods. Which she supposed he was, in a way. He leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head and stared up at the sky, mottled with the branches of trees and their hundreds and thousands of leaves, and said simply "Oh."

Just that. "Oh." Like she hadn't just continued her mental ramblings and told him something that made no sense whatsoever out of context. Well, so long as she was spewing her thought processes at him and he wasn't complaining, she saw no reason not to continue. "….So. You ever feel like you could fly?"

He gave her a Look. In fact, she was almost dead certain that he gave her _Raven's_ look. Kid was hanging around that girl too much if he could use her Look…Right, track, back to flight. Wingless flight, flightless flight.

"Without wings, I mean. Ever feel like if you run fast enough, run hard enough, run far enough…that you'll get to this point where you just leave the ground entirely, just find yourself flying up and away? Like that myth. The one about Dedalus and Icarus."

"…The one where the guy got burned. And fell."

She was silent a moment. "Yeah. That one. Raven tell you that one?" If he answered her, she didn't hear it. "Sometimes…when you're out in the woods and the wild and you've been wandering and wondering long enough….sometimes you feel like somehow you're wandered your way right on into that myth. And that's fine, that's cool, but then…Then you feel your wings start to catch on fire. And that's not so cool, that's not fine." They'd stopped at some point, she was leaning up against a tree feeling her clothing catch on the rough bark and he was perched on a rock across the game trail from her. Silent. Just watching, waiting. Odd for him.

"…Gods, why am I even _telling_ you all this?"

"Because I'm listening," he said, and she realized it was true. She smiled, a bit more shakily than she would have liked.

"So what are you doing out here all the time, anyway?"

He looked away and stretched. Not a normal stretch, not an I'll-just-get-these-kinks-out-of-my-back-now stretch, a lithe feline _animal_ stretch. "I'm scratching at the surface, too. And where there's rock…I guess I'm looking for a cave."

"You have one," she said without thinking, and he didn't reply. "You've got your scratched out niche and you've got your cave and you just don't _see_ it yet."

He didn't say anything. Didn't move, for a second. Then he turned and gave her a smile, a real smile, and for that one second his eyes were unshuttered and hurting and _real_, and then he turned into a bird and flew away. And she stood there stupidly.

Jinx knew things.

But she had no idea how his strange little family worked, and suddenly, she realized that she never would.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** As you might have guessed, I'm in a strange mood. I'm also rather sleep deprived and somewhat high on caffeine. And for those of you who read Five Stories as well? ...Robin did have a batpole. Gotta love the 1966 show... 

I'm pretty sure there was something I wanted to say here, but hell if I know what it was.

...Reviews?


	28. You're It

**Disclaimer: **You know what? I've had a really remarkably rotten day, so no snappy remarks up here.

* * *

**125. Henry the Eighth I Am**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"I'm Henry the Eighth I am, Henry the Eight I am, I am, I got married to the widow next door, she's been married seven times before-"

Robin stared at his coffee and contemplated the grounds he could see through the thin liquid in despair. _Never should've let Starfire try brewing coffee_. All the same, he lifted the cup and drained it.

"-and every one was a Henery, she wouldn't have a Willie or a Sam! I'm her eight old man, I'm Henery, Henery the Eighth I am!"

He glanced at Raven for help, but she was utterly absorbed in her book, apparently completely able to block Beast Boy's voice out.

"-Second verse, same as the first!" Cyborg's voice joined in.

Robin groaned and got up to brew himself more coffee.

* * *

**126. Letters to the Knight**

_Continuity: Unknown_

Dear Batman.

I should have written this letter a long time ago. Years, maybe. I know that, and for what it's worth, I'm sorry about it. Not sorry enough to change things, but sorry all the same.

I can't be who you want me to be. I'm Robin. Just Robin, Bruce, and _my _Robin- not any of the others you've steered into the job. I'm not them. I'm not you. I'm not Batgirl, or Alfred, or any of the other people you've wanted me to take after. I'm _me_. Only, purely, myself.

I know you had things all planned out. Too bad. Bats can't raise birds forever- birds, they tend to fledge, and then to fly away. And to grow too big for the cave, too fast- even little robins. Fledglings follow their own flight plan from the fledging on- and my flight plan starts with stepping out of the cave and out of the dark and into the light, where robins belong.

So I'm sorry, Bruce. But no winged thing can ever unfledged, and it's time and more than time for me to try my wings and fly on my own.

-Robin

* * *

**127. Chronic**

_Continuity: Season Five_

Footsteps warned him he had company, and scenting the air briefly told him who it was. Robin stopped a few feet behind him, not approaching the rock.

Then he spoke a single word guaranteed to make Beast Boy listen.

"Sakutia."

If Robin wanted a reaction of shock, he didn't get one. Beast Boy had been more than half-expecting this confrontation since the incident with the Beast. He didn't react at all, to Robin's eyes, just pulled his knees up to his chest and focused his eyes on the distant waves.

After a long moment the footsteps sounded again, and Robin swung into place beside his younger teammate. "Beast Boy," he said quietly, "why didn't you ever say anything?"

"…Why would I have said anything?" the shifter asked, genuinely confused.

That made Robin pause a moment. "Look, I read all the research. This- this disease kills. Often."

"I'm not dead yet," Beast Boy pointed out with a wry quirk of his lip. "And I don't plan on being dead anytime soon."

"But-"

Beast Boy stood up. "Look, Rob, thanks- I guess, though I'd like it if you _didn't _go rummaging through my past- but I'll worry about it when or if it happens." He shrugged expansively. "Besides, if you read all the research, you already know that I'm the exception."

Robin stayed quiet for a long moment. Then, just when Beast Boy thought he was going to return to the Tower, the Boy Wonder said quietly, "Doesn't it- well- _bother_ you?"

"After this many years? Sometimes. Not often. It's not something I think about that much," he shrugged. "You can't do anything about it, Rob- so don't worry about it. Okay?"

Robin never replied to that. Instead, he stayed outside until dawn, sitting silently on the rock, and when the sun's first rays crept over the water Beast Boy slid effortlessly into a dolphin's form and then into the bay.

And Robin continued to stare out into the waves.

* * *

**128. Altered View**

_Continuity: Anytime after _001: Refuge

The odd thing about having been homeless once, no matter how briefly, was that it skewed his perceptions permanently afterward. He found he couldn't walk through Jump without some part of him assessing where in his surroundings there was a good place to spend the night, or planning out ways to find food- he'd pass a covered archway or a bridge and note that there was a good place to keep the rain off, or that particular tree had branches wide enough to sleep on and high enough to hide in, or that this store had free samples daily and that restaurant had free coffee. Even things like, this street has three people on it who leave out food for stray cats, this shelter has so many cats they wouldn't notice one more slipping in when it was dark and leaving before light. He couldn't _help_ it.

The worst part was, he had the disturbing feeling that Mento would be _proud _of this newfound ability.

* * *

**129. You're It**

_Continuity: Anytime_

"Tag, you're it!"

Raven stared at Beast Boy in frank disbelief.

He danced backwards, grinning happily, "You're it, you're it, no tag-backs!"

After a long, long pause that probably should have been awkward, Raven got up.

….And went to find Robin.

"Hey, Rob."

"Yes?" He didn't even look up from his reports.

"…Tag. You're it."

* * *

**130. Relative Comfort**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Jinx fell backwards onto the bed with a happy sigh. The soft, _soft_ bed. It had been a _long_ time since she'd had a soft bed to sleep in and oh, was she looking forward to it. A soft bed and a hot shower, maybe a long bath. "I cannot tell you how nice this is after all the cave floors and tree branches and washing up in rivers," she muttered into the pillow.

A soft laugh answered her and her head shot up, her eyes widening. "Kid! How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to hear you talking to your pillow. Were you just about at the point where you confess your undying love for me to it?"

She threw the offending pillow at him and sat up, stretching. His eyes softened behind his mask. "C'mon. Robin says if we're staying here, we have to train with the team."

Jinx groaned. "That may be enough to drive me out into the woods again early."

He crossed his arms and tapped his foot impatiently. "Like your wandering feet won't have you back out there in a week's time anyway."

"_My_ wandering feet? Who's the nomad that dragged me into this, again?"

Kid Flash only smiled.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** I know I've got List additions to put up, but like I said, it's been a really rotten day. Or week. So I'm sorry, I'll put them up later. 

By the way, for an idea of where Chronic came from, feel free to look up Sydenham's Chorea. Not on Wiki though, their information on it kinda sucks.

...Reviews?? Dear gods, please?


	29. Consequences

**Disclaimer:** Oh spring break, how I love thee! In a much happier mood now. I think the chapter kinda reflects it. Oh, and 134 is for DeathJester, as DeathJester gave me the excellent idea for it.

* * *

**131. Balancing Act**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Raven walked in darkness most of her life, and she knew it. She wasn't alone in her family as far as the dark went; Robin walked there too, and possibly Cyborg as well, though he edged closer to twilight. Starfire belonged wholly in the light, for all that her life had tried to steer her otherwise.

But Beast Boy, Beast Boy alone of all of them, danced the edge between light and dark, danced out where the sky split into night and day, danced along a knife-edge separation- and somehow, though his feet had to be cut and bleeding, somehow he never seemed to fall.

* * *

**132. Oasis**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Cyborg leaned back happily and reveled in the feel of the speeding car under him. In the passenger seat, Beast Boy bounced around happily. In fact…was he even wearing a seat belt?

"You belted, grass stain?" At the kind of speed Cyborg liked to take the T-car, he'd damn well better be.

"Uh-huh!" Beast Boy chirped as he swiftly buckled his seat belt, glancing over to see if Cyborg had caught him in the lie. Cyborg had, but decided against letting him know that.

Beast Boy started whistling, loud and bright and clear, and Cyborg smiled and rolled down the window. Moments later a green dog hung his head out the window and panted happily as Cyborg sped down the empty road. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught a flash of purple; Raven had caught up with them. She waved to let him know she could keep up, and he saw she had a rather bulky backpack with her. He gestured at the T-car and she shook her head.

Shortly before chasing the Brotherhood of Evil, the Titans had noticed that the JCPD was getting a little…well…sloppy. They'd begun calling on the Titans for even the most minor of things. Having to deal without their teenage protectors while they were first all over the place and then in Tokyo had forced the police force to become self-reliant again, but they'd all deemed it best if they reminded them of this occasionally.

So, every few months, some of the Titans went off on a brief vacation. They took it in shifts so that they didn't leave Jump entirely unprotected, and these shifts had naturally fallen neatly between Starfire and Robin, and then Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Raven.

Starfire and Robin had gone last time, so now the three of them were heading deep into the mountains for some 'quality time.' …Well, actually, Beast Boy swore he could 'get drunk on mountain air,' and had convinced the other two to go along with him.

"-maybe I just wanna fly, wanna live and don't wanna die, maybe I just wanna breathe, maybe I just don't believe!"

Somehow, the changeling had gained control of the radio.

"Maybe you're the same as me, we see things that they'll never see, you and I are gonna _live forever!"_

This was going to be another of those remarkably…ah…interesting trips, wasn't it?

* * *

**133. Meditation**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Raven closed her eyes and slipped easily into a meditative trance with the ease born only of long practice. She touched briefly on her feelings for her friends, and as always it sent a smile across her features. Cyborg as her brother, Starfire her sister, Robin set ever so slightly apart as the leader of them all and as someone she felt far more loyalty to than she would ever have expected- and Beast Boy elevated, to a position she remained unsure of, but where she was content to let things rest for now. Whatever else they might be, whatever else might come, they were her family, and _that_ was what was important.

* * *

**134. Really Quite Blatantly Obvious Love Songs**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

This was driving him nuts.

For the past several nights, he'd lain awake and stared at the ceiling as music filtered through the wall he shared with Raven, music pitched at just where he couldn't _quite _make out the words. She had to be doing that intentionally- it was pitched to _his_ hearing.

Enough was enough already!

Throwing back the covers, Beast Boy shifted into a gnat and flitted out between the cracks of his door, then in under Raven's door. He darted under the bed and shifted into something with better hearing- a wolf cub, he decided. He sprawled out beneath the bed, panting quietly, and listened close.

Raven…was singing. Quietly, to herself, sitting on her bed, _Raven _was singing. Rolling onto his side, Beast Boy pressed one ear against the bottom of the bed, unaware his tail had started a slow, lazy thumping.

"There'll be times when I'm mistaken, oh, and there'll be times when we're gonna fight…But you needn't doubt that we'll work it out, and in time we'll get it right. So forgive me if we go slow but there's something I think you should know…"

Beast Boy's tail thumped faster, and his tongue lolled out happily. Sure, she could mean someone else, but….She was perfectly pitched to carry the song to_ his_ room and _his_ ears.

If he could have seen the slight smile on her face- for his wagging tail was nowhere near inaudible, and every now and then a flash of green fur showed from under the bed- he would have been even less in doubt.

"I'm goin' fast as I can, please don't make me rush- this feeling's coming on way too fast. I'll tell you all of the things that you'll never forget."

Her voice dropped again, lower than a whisper, but still easy for him to hear.

"But I'm not ready to say, "I love you," yet. I'm not ready to say, "I love you," yet."

Beast Boy let out a long sigh and laid his head on his paws, his tail thumping one last time on the carpeted floor. Raven's bedside lamp clicked off.

But just before he was ready to rise and creep back into his own room, he heard-

"Good night, Beast Boy."

* * *

**135. Blanket Monster!**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

At first Raven eyed the huge, bright quilt spread out over the common room floor with distaste. Then, when some of the lumps she'd thought to be furniture started to move about and giggle, she eyed it with alarm.

She eyed it with rather more than that when a black-clad arm snaked out, wrapped around her feet, and yanked her under the quilt. This was accompanied by a cry of "Blanket Monster, raaahhh!" and shortly followed by her blinking up at Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy, all looking entertained. Starfire was giggling.

"Friend," she explained, "you have been eaten by the Blanket Monster, and now you are a Blanket Monster as well, and you must do the same to the next person who passes by!"

Staring back at her friend's faces- Cyborg in particular was looking unusually gleeful, and it was more than a little disturbing- Raven sighed. "…We're all going to end up sleeping on the roof again, aren't we."

* * *

**136. Consequences**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"Beast Boy."

"Yeah?"

"…This is your fault."

"You know you love me."

Cyborg groaned and threw one arm over his eye.

"Could be worse."

"How." That was Raven's voice, dripping irony, from where she was settled on the other side of Beast Boy with her arms behind her head.

"Could be raining." Beast Boy giggled.

Cyborg would have hit him, but Raven beat him to it.

"…Ow! Oh, c'mon, we get to sleep out under the stars an' everything! Right, Starfire?"

Starfire giggled as well. "That is correct, friend! And they are glorious tonight! They seem almost within reach, do they not?"

"That's because they're much closer from the _roof _than they are from in our _rooms_," Raven growled pragmatically. "Our nice, welcoming, _warm_ rooms." It was cold out on the roof.

"It was worth it! It was _so_ worth it for the look on his face!"

Raven sighed and gave it up for a lost cause, deciding she would at least try to get some sleep tonight.

When she woke up, the first rays of the dawn sunlight were streaking the roof, she was huddled between Starfire and Cyborg with Starfire wrapped contentedly around her arm, and a green panther was snoozing contentedly sprawled atop her.

…Well. She was certainly warm.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** BlanketMonster! Along with PantsMan, Peter Pan and Sonic the Hedgehog, a staple of my childhood. My... rather insane childhood. Songs are Oasis'_ Live Forever _and Great Big Sea's _Fast As I Can. _By the way, these, along with almost every other song I've ever used, can be found on YouTube. 


	30. I Go To Funerals

**Disclaimer:** And this is technically Cyrus's (extremely belated) birthday chapter, but his requests aren't in it. Sorry, Cy, I haven't had time- these were all written or mostly written already.

…why did all my childhood heroes sleep in trees? In a related comment, psychologists dislike me. 'Cuz I'm a bizarrely well-adjusted crazy person, whoo! Who's currently craving chilidogs…Damn you, Sonic Hedgehog!

* * *

**137. Fear of Falling**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"What are…" Raven cut herself off. Between blanket monsters and scarf men and sleeping on roof tops and wild trips into the middle of the ocean, she decided 'what are you doing' was probably better left unanswered. Let it never be said that Raven did not learn from her mistakes.

Of course, the same could not be said for Beast Boy.

He was most probably responsible for the pile of quilts, comforters, and pillows on the hall floor. In fact, as she watched, he appeared at a run at the other side of the hallway and _dove_ off his feet and headfirst into the pile of bedding. A moment later his head popped up near her feet, a single feather from a now-battered-beyond-repair pillow adorning his head.

Raven raised an eyebrow at him.

"What?" he asked innocently. The intended air of innocence was ruined when the feather slipped down and tickled his nose, making him sneeze. The sneeze, in turn, caused more feathers to fly up.

Sighing, Raven gave in. "…What are you doing."

"…Diving into a pile of bedding?" he tried, grinning disarmingly.

"Well, that much I can see," Raven retorted dryly. "What I'd like to know is _why_."

He shrugged. "It's fun. The feeling you get when you're in the air right before you hit is neat, like maybe someone's going to yank all the blankets out from under you at the last moment." He grinned up at her again. "Wanna try?"

_Blanket monsters and scarf men and sleeping on roof tops and wild trips into the middle of the ocean…. _The part of Raven's mind that still insisted on believing that everything could be solved with love and trust and pixie dust- the part of her mind that was cloaked suspiciously in pink and giggling wildly- caused her to sigh, back up, and take a running dive into the pile of cushions.

"…Ow."

"…You were, uh, supposed to wait for me to move."

"Oh." Raven found herself disinclined to move from her spot, actually.

Ten minutes later saw them both comfortably ensconced in their nest of blankets and pillows in the midst of the hallway.

An hour and a half later saw Robin staring incredulously at his entire team sound asleep in said 'nest.

* * *

**138. Lullaby**

_Continuity: After _Oasis

"Mrrrf…" Raven groaned as sudden motion shook her awake. She raised her head and blinked in a moment of dislocation before remembering where she was. Sleeping on the T-car's passenger seat, with Cyborg on the back seat (and partially in the trunk, for that matter) and Beast Boy curled up on the driver's seat. She frowned. Cyborg had been quite clear on that _she_ was to be in the driver's seat and _Beast Boy _ in the passenger's seat. And wait, what was it that had woken her again….?

Someone was singing softly, but that definitely wasn't what had woken her. In fact, it was a song that was likely to send her back to sleep when combined with the sound of rain falling outside. She knew without opening her eyes that it was going to be one of those gray days that made everyone want to just curl up in front of a window and stare mindlessly out at the rain.

"…And if ever fate should choose to smite you, stand your ground, don't walk away. Please don't ever let the world defeat you, don't get buried in its decay." The background on the music playing was water dropping gently, a background that made an eerie echo to the world outside. Raven cracked her eyes open and saw that water ran in tiny rivulets all along the car window. The heater was on, leaving the side of her facing it warm, and she realized she'd curled into the seat for warmth. She shifted around, still stuck with the sense that something was wrong. She wasn't properly awake yet- everything seemed to be conspiring against her waking properly.

"As you drift into the gauzy realm of dreams, may you take comfort in the thought that you are safe. For it only takes a fraction of a second…for all of this, to change…"

"Mmmf….Beast Boy?" That was Cyborg's voice, sleep-muffled, and the music cut off abruptly. "BB, what are you…HEY! Hey, don't….THAT'S NOT TO PLAY WITH! Get _out _ of the driver's seat, Beast Boy! …Pull over! Pull over _right now!"_

She debated 'waking up' to help deal with this. After a bit of thought, though, she decided this was her vacation- she really didn't see why she should bother. Beast Boy wasn't going to crash- she thought- and if it seemed like he was, she'd deal with the problem then.

Raven smirked to herself, before curling closer to the backrest and closing her eyes again.

* * *

**139. I Go to Funerals**

_Continuity: After _Lullaby

Raven stared at the now-dead screen, baffled by the feelings the movie had evoked.

"Rae?"

She didn't answer him right away, taking an extra moment to shake herself out of her odd stupor. When she looked up, Beast Boy was grinning at her happily, though Cyborg looked just as bemused as she felt.

Beast Boy rocked back on his heels on the rented bed, turned a smug look to Cy, and said, "See? I _told_ you. It has this effect on everyone. Star's supposed to be getting Robin to watch it, she wanted to see if it did it to him, too." His smile grew a fraction. "But if it worked on _Raven_ then it's gotta work even on Robin."

"I have no idea how that happened," Raven said slowly. "That was…It was…Why do I feel so.."

"Happy?" Beast Boy suggested, grinning again. "Like something deep inside you wants to break free, spread its wings, and soar straight up into the sky?"

Cyborg nodded. "Even _I _feel like that, and I can't fly!"

"And it makes no sense," Raven said wryly. "It…That movie shouldn't leave you with that feeling, not the way it's set up. It _shouldn't. _So why _does _it?"

Shrugging, leaping to his feet and rolling off the hotel bed, Beast Boy said, "I dunno. But like I said, it does it to everyone- and now-" he smiled. "- let's go flying?"

After a long moment, Raven conjured a disc of dark energy and raised an eyebrow at Cyborg. "Coming?"

Cyborg popped Harold and Maude back out of the VHS player and returned it to its case, eying the movie with confusion. It left him with such an odd feeling, something like a wild freedom, and yet…not _exactly _like that. And Beast Boy said it did that to _everyone?_

He had a sudden shrewd feeling that this strange, intangible, indefinable, wild exhilaration that the movie left him with was something Beast Boy himself was profoundly familiar with.

* * *

**140. Rooftop Run**

_Continuity: Anytime_

Robin landed, knees bent, and straightened with a sigh. This was one occasion where he missed the rest of the Bat team, sometimes; Cyborg was too heavy for the rooftop run, and the others would never get quite the same rush from it since they could fly. The thrill wasn't the same when you didn't have to worry quite so much about falling, he thought wryly.

* * *

**141. Sonic Past Cool**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"That is an incredibly stereotypical French fox," Jinx announced loudly, before pausing. "…I can't even pin down which part of that statement bothers me the most."

"Possibly that it can interpreted more than one way?" Cyborg suggested, leaning back. Beast Boy poked his head around Cyborg to throw popcorn at Kid Flash, sitting on the opposite end of the couch. Raven pulled Beast Boy back to his original position.

Jinx shot Cyborg a dirty look and continued. "And these catch phrases make no sense. 'Let's do it, to it?' 'Let's juice and jam?" What the _hell_?"

"Well, we did tell you it was mine and BB's childhood hero," Cyborg pointed out pragmatically. "I mean okay, so B wasn't exactly a _child_ when he got really into Sonic, but- what did you expect his hero to be like? Bad jokes and stupid catchphrases! Sonic!"

"Hey, these jokes are gold!" Beast Boy defended himself.

Raven rolled her eyes. "Beast Boy, calling Robotnik _Robuttnik_ in no way constitutes a good joke."

"Sonic is great," Kid Flash said enthusiastically, eyes riveted to the screen.

"Well of course _you'd _like him!" Jinx replied, unconsciously echoing Raven's eye roll. "He's obsessed with speed and cocky as hell…I mean, you two've practically got the same personality!"

"We do _not_!" Beast Boy and Kid Flash chorused together.

"Beast Boy," Cyborg said, exasperated. "_No one was talking to you_."

"Oh," the shifter replied, eyes _also _glued to the screen. "Uh, in that case, I do _too_. It's Sonic! Being compared to Sonic is awesome!"

"The fact remains that it was Flash being compared to Sonic, not you," Raven said dryly.

"Hey, what do you think would happen if he tripped?" Kid Flash suddenly wondered aloud. The five of them looked at each other.

When Robin and Starfire came back from their trip to the mall, it was to see Kid Flash zooming in circles around the island with Beast Boy and Cyborg attempting to trip him. Raven was watching, looking faintly amused; Jinx had a video camera and was laughing wickedly.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** Song is Assemblage 23's _Lullaby; _using it in a ficlet was Death Jester's idea. If you've never seen Harold and Maude you need to, it's an extremely therapeutic movie for some reason. I was diving into a nest of bedding while watching it, to my cat's extreme bafflement. What? It was fun. I slept there that night, too. 

Also, I picked up a copy of Sonic the hedgehog SatAM on DVD a while back, so that's where that part came from. I love Sonic.

**IMPORTANT:**

This is almost certainly gonna be the last update for a while, since school is in session again and I have monstrous amounts of material to study. Good news is, my school quarter is only ten weeks, then one week of finals, then a break. I may manage to write some before break, but it's unlikely.


	31. Therapy for Free

**Disclaimer: **Oh gods I know, it's been forever and it's short. I'm sorry, school kinda owns my soul at the moment. Those of you who still have summer vacations, treasure them, you'll miss them later. Like you miss recess. And I'm sure I have mail to answer too. Trying to catch up on things this weekend before heading full-out into finals week. Just in case I don't before I have to study like mad (again), thank you Cylor, you have no idea how good your last review made me feel. It made an otherwise lousy day very, very good.

* * *

**142. WordPlay**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

"So what are your three favorite words in the English language?"

"What?" Cyborg turned to stare at Beast Boy, who blended into the emerald grasses of the park. The changeling blinked, slowly, lazily.

"Humour me."

"Geez, I don't know. Huh. Love, hope, and freedom, I guess."

"Rob?" Robin was sprawled out on Beast Boy's opposite side, Starfire sleeping soundly curled in the crook of his arm and half-asleep himself.

"Hate to be cliché, but, birds, bats, and flight, I guess."

"Rae?"

Turning another page in her book beneath the shadow of a tree, Raven rolled her eyes. "I'll pass, thanks."

There was a long moment of not-quite-silence, everyone listening to the breeze through the grasses and the soft even breath of the other and gentle rustle of Raven turning the pages of her book. Then came, finally, the question they were all wondering, "What about you, Beast Boy?"

He propped his head on his hands, closed his eyes, gazed at the red sun on his closed eyelids, and smiled. "Sometimes, always, and forever."

* * *

**143. Baboges**

_Continuity: After Season Five_

Robin eyed his team, bemused. He'd stepped out to check his messages and been gone longer than he'd expected, having had a message from Batman that had really needed an immediate reply, and the team had reshuffled their seating arrangements while he'd been out of the room. They _had_ been scattered along the couch; now they were seated in a huddle on the floor, gazing at each other almost predatorily.

"What are you doing?" Robin said slowly, almost afraid to ask, and unconsciously taking a step back and balancing himself to spring away in case this turned into a repeat of the Christmas tree fiasco.

He did _not_ look like a Christmas tree, thankyouverymuch.

"We're playing a game," Cyborg replied without taking his eyes off the rest of the team.

"Yeah," Beast Boy said, speaking very slowly, "it's this game I know from a long time ago. It's fun, you should play…I didn't say anything!" he shouted as Cyborg made a false lunge at him.

"Yet," Raven added ominously.

Beast Boy made a face at her. "So not fair. You _always_ manage to avoid saying anything."

"Still confused," Robin intoned, only to be ignored.

"What was it you were telling us about last Fourth of July, friend?" Starfire asked brightly.

"Oh yeah, we saw this guy holding all these sparklers, and he was running down the street dressed in only his box-"

Everyone lunged at Beast Boy and punched the nearest part of him. The shifter fell over with a shout and managed to cry out, "Ba- baboges! I said it dammit, get off!"

The group resolved itself back into the predatory huddle from before.

Robin stared.

Raven noticed this and sighed. "Guys, I call time. Robin, it's a game, whenever someone says something that starts with a B everyone else attacks them until they say Baboges."

The Boy Wonder nodded slowly. "So.. the important part is, this is all Beast Boy's fault."

Everyone dove for him.

"I'm not playing! I'm not playing!"

* * *

**144. Truth and Lies**

_Continuity: _After Things Change

She had been on her way into the kitchen for some tea, but stopped when she saw him standing silently in the common room. She made her way behind him and stood, watching the TV's blank screen just as he was, and noted the clenching and unclenching of his fists.

"Raven," he said finally, his voice hoarse, and she moved to sit down on the couch beside him as he almost fell into it. They both shifted towards each other slightly as they sank into the couch and he put his head in his hands. His voice was muffled when he spoke again. "Rae, why do they tell people that time heals all wounds? Why do they…" He trailed off.

Very hesitantly, Raven put her arm around his shoulders. "I don't know why, Gar. A lot of people think it's true."

"It isn't though," he said tiredly. "It's a lie. It's just a lie."

* * *

**145. Therapy for Free**

_Continuity: After _Trouble in Tokyo

He'd found this place about a week after returning from Japan and now he came here every week. It was addicting, a rush; he was surprised how good it made him feel.

"Beast Boy, you're up!"

He made his way to the mike as the screen flashed _Surrender- Cheap Trick_ at him.

He loved karaoke nights.

It was like therapy for free.

He had a tendency to stay past last call though, and he was getting pretty suspicious of that cloaked form in the back corner. After watching her get increasingly uncomfortable through Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and Brandy (You're A Fine Girl), he made his way over to her, waving off the people he normally sat with. Sure they didn't see each other outside the bar, but karaoke nights made for good bonding, it seemed. Plus, the bar was proud to have a Titan coming every week.

"You gonna sing?" he asked teasingly, sliding into a seat across from her.

Raven pushed back her hood and glared at him. "I don't sing."

He grinned back at her. "But I bet you'd be good at it."

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko:** A friend of my brother taught my group of friends and me Baboges. Play it, it's mad fun, even if you get the crap beaten out of you. You learn to avoid the letter B _fast. _You also get extremely vicious about attacking your friends. I don't like the phrases 'time heals all wounds' or 'it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.' I particularly hate the second one. They're trite and they're not true. 

I've been going to karaoke once a week now, it's been keeping my stress levels down. It really is like free therapy. You meet the most interesting people too- some guy I've never met before proposed to me last week.

...Reviews?


	32. Something Stupid

**Disclaimer: **Proving that I'm not dead. I am attempting to work on the epilogue of Hearts, but between school and family issues and the death of an instructor I looked up to very much I really haven't been much for writing recently. Particularly not for Teen Titans fics. So, this is a very short little thing written to try and get back into the feel of writing the Titans- it's not what I set out to write but seeing as it's at least in the right fandom I'll consider it a victory.

* * *

**146. Something Stupid**

_Continuity: Not sure? Sometime in the future apparently, since they're in a bar. _

She really could not have said how she'd ended up here. She had her suspicions, of course, and a great many of them centered on Cyborg, but she couldn't prove any of them. He'd gotten her in here originally by pleading with her to come listen to them singing If I Had A Million Dollars.

That didn't explain why she was _still_ here.

Raven hunched further into her cloak and hoped she wouldn't be recognized. Of course, given that the bar and that whoever was up on stage tended to attract the most attention, she might be in luck there. She was also being assaulted by the drunken singing of "Wind Beneath My Wings" for the third time that night however, so she wasn't at all sure about her level of luck.

She was even less sure about her level of luck when he bounded eagerly up onto the stage. He was grinning and she was trying to figure out exactly how he could be _that_ reminiscent of an eager puppy without actually shifting when the screen came up with the song title and she froze.

She very, very carefully did _not_ look in the direction of the stage as he started singing.

"I know I stand in line, until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me- and if we go someplace to dance, I know that there's a chance you won't be leaving with me!"

Judging by the laughter and, in at least one case, actually swooning going on amongst the bar patrons he was really hamming it up.

"And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two… and then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid like…" There was a hairbreadth's pause that Raven was almost positive wasn't part of the original song. "…I love you."

She was certain she was blushing down to the roots of her hair, but she still steadfastly refused to look up from her table. It was a very nice table, really. The whorls in the wood grain would be very good for that silly cloud game that Beast Boy and Starfire seemed so fond of.

"I can see it in your eyes, that you despise the same old lies you heard the night before, and though it's just a line to you for me it's true and never seemed so right before."

She finally looked up at him. She knew immediately this was a mistake. Apparently, as she'd been inspecting the table, he'd been turning the full force of the most pathetic puppy dog eyes she'd ever seen in her direction.

"I practice every day to find some clever lines to say to make the meaning come through, but then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late and I'm alone with you." He was off the stage. When had he gotten off the stage? He was off the stage and moving through the tables and _what _had possessed her to sit at a back corner instead of next to an exit?

"The time is right your perfume fills my head, the stars get red and oh the night's so blue and then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid like…" He was right in front of her. He reached out and without thinking she took his hand and he pulled her up and into a hug and murmured the last line.

"…I love you."

* * *

**147. Oh, Susannah!  
**

_Continuity: See above._

Somewhere in the back of her mind she'd always expected this to become a regular thing, and in that same spot in the back of her mind she'd always expected him to manage to drag everyone else into it somehow.

This was Raven's excuse for where she was at this moment- seated at her regular table with Robin across from her. He was clearly not seeing anything but the Tamaranean princess currently up on stage and belting out lyrics as Beast Boy, Cyborg, Jinx, and Kid Flash all attempted (and failed) to ignore their mismatched heights in favor of an impromptu kickline.

"These boots are made for walkin'! And that's just what they'll do! One of these days these boots are gonna walk- all over- you!"

When Kid Flash started singing Oh Susannah, though, Raven decided it was time to leave.

* * *

**GuardianSaiyoko: **Something Stupid belongs to Frank Sinatra, as far as I am aware. My grandfather sang this to my grandmother during one of my family's odd spur-of-the-moment singalongs and it always struck me as such a cute thing to sing. That, and I was chuckling to myself at the line "I practice every day to find some clever lines to say." Second fic was written after consuming an alarmingly large quantity of energy tea and finding myself singing "Oh Susannah" while staring at Hearts file. My mind's working oddly recently. 

I have finals this week, but I am attempting to finish up the epilogue to Hearts. I want it to be good so naturally it's being difficult to write.

Also, if you go to karaoke? Don't sing Bette Midler._ It annoys everyone. _So knock it off already.


End file.
